Reflective Blog
Theory Research
Interactive Media Graphics
In lesson we learned how websites made by different companies/people were brought to us and what original designs they had to catch the audience's eye. We knew that all websites had similarities to each other like layout, navigation menu, navigation bar, rollover button which drops down categories and company logo. Also learned about link addresses on how to get to that site a.k.a marksandspencer.com this can also be copy and pasted to people online.
Rollover buttons change appearance when you put your mouse over them to indicate that your mouse is over it or going to click it. When clicking it it'll change you to a next page.
Navigation Bars are link addresses on top of the screen on websites which look like bars with context in them. They can be copy and pasted, sent to other people which brings them automatically to the site (home page)
Animated Graphics can be short (few seconds) animations on websites homepages mostly in background e.g. you can mostly find them on film/video websites. Or Lego's website where it actually has its own logo on the top left do a few second intro every couple of seconds. This is used to make the website more attractive.
Navigation Menus are attached on to rollover buttons after they're clicked on by a person on a website, it creates a small tab opening with categories or important details not too complicated for the audience.
Hyperlinks are main logos on websites which can be clicked on to go on the main page/homepage instantly instead of re-pressing the arrow key on the top left of the screen. You can tell it's a hyperlink by your mouse shape turning into a hand.
Audience Research
Audience Research
It's for a place or website to gather people who have interest in their community to express thoughts, opinions or even knowledge on the topic or film. This can be used to help its own community with questions and make it easier and more suitable for customers/visitors or new arrivals on media mostly before going to a place. Lot's of these websites like Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb etc, will have detailed and constructive thoughts on New films and previous films. These ideas on discussing topics in films can be taking sides on a certain opinion on a films approach and what scenes happen in a film. Promotion The Irishman can help find even more people to watch this film.
Social-Economic
People who are divided by different leagues depending what income they have from what they do. It can be any ordinary people to about anyone in any community. The difference is that people who make higher income are made higher than those who have less income. It can be in an industry, job and community. This can be deciding whether if someone or a family/group of people have better quality lives and jobs than someone who have less, but its what income they make per year. It can be low-income families, middle class and first class.
Psycho-Graphic
It's for learning about different peoples interests and tastes. This is what companies use to practice how they're costumers want something, some companies hire and study different people, age, race, gender etc and practice different products that they want, which they can make opinions on so companies and brands can use this ideally to make their customers happy and gain more demographic depending how large the company is and if they want to expand. Real research goes into peoples personalities and taste for something: It can be food, clothing or an accessory.
Geo-Demographic
In marketing, this study is used to determine a small or big population of people e.g. in a town, city or even neighbourhood - to see if the population in that area are in the same group or different group of people. This can be used in marketing for companies to be shipping products. But before, its studying how big that area of people is and what the population is and if it grows, this is directed at neighbourhoods- Studying could include how good of quality the neighbourhood is and if people want to live there, therefore marketing can expand.
Ethnographic
It's the study of social interaction in the real world but this time people are being observed on how it works. This can be in Town centres, neighbourhoods, schools, colleges and universities - those are places where a mixed ethnicity and culture of people will be to hangout and socialise. Studying could include conversation, body language, tone and voice.
Subject Research
Target Audience Research
If it's a production its what type of audience, it's for which is by age or gender or where it's at. This is very important for different subjects of film especially. In the UK film is reviewed by the BBFC for approval on age and audience type. For example, I'm doing 'The Irishman' which is a Mafia-Thriller-Drama. You can guess from the Genre that it's not a PG under 12 film, It's directed at Teenagers and Adults because of Mild Violence and certain Scenes in the Film. Now this is for an audience which will find it entertaining if they're the age above 15 or just into this type of Genre, because when Trailers come out on YouTube, or get released into a Critic Website, community's will debate on it and it helps gain an audience.
Survey
Asking questions for an audience when a team is doing research on a particular subject. It's to gain opinion (no right or wrong) onto a subject. It can be critical or non critical depending the subject. A survey can also have questions about the people being asked, it can be about any particular subject about their personalities, what they do. These surveys will have to be intimidating to gain a response out of an individual or persons
Existing Relevant websites
This website which inspired me to create the imaginary company promoting and recommending the film, The Irishman "Film Box Productions" was from this website here, which ironically helps it's audience promote and release merchandise, music and products. The website feel gave me inspiration for the dark tone and bright images on my The Irishman website, it makes the thing on screen pop out and easily visible. The Target audiences for this website are over 16 or 18 years old. It's a promotion for young people to start thinking big and it inspires people to start their own profession. A lot of the company has to do with Media and it's careers, with the same vibe. The USP for this website is their unique services that they're doing for their customers + how to net work and create new associates to brand with their company.
The big difference between My Irishman Website and 3Blackdot was that it had more a theme taste agenda to their website whilst mine needed more implying to adjust to the Irishman theme. The Background on their page gives that eye opener on what the theme is, but on my website it has the fiction company and Logo which haves the theme alike.
The interactive part is hyperlinks put into the 4 titles here which are on the main page, they go into different pages when clicked on to take you to see a different part of their website depending on what button you clicked. It will then open up on another page with a list of details of what you were interested to see. The website has a lot of gif/animations displaying their content.
It's a movie, TV show, Videos, Celeb and Community Website which registers and reviews Movies and TV shows with a community from those who watched them. My Irishman website took some inspiration from this because The Irishman needs good reviews and net working to explode to make more people watch it, which is similar to what IMDB does. IMBD has interactive buttons which takes you onto a menu, which is simple and easy to find Top rated movies and TV shows to make sure you find the best 1s, which is what they're USP is. My irishman website promotes the Film to an audience who likes the genre the Irishman is, therefore building a community but on my website its just The Irishman. The IMDB target audience is something between 16-18 or mid 20s, because critics on the website is something familiar to people who find it as a hobby to decide what film or TV show is good, bad, and other criticism it could receive, so it definitely has a mature audience. The audience advantage is that it's communities are balanced which explores new films coming out which are going to have a major explosion on new audiences to gain popularity, this will also benefit IMDB to gain more audiences.
Accessible navigation menu to click onto many different categories in the films section. IMDB have a Menu interactive button which selects you onto the list of Films, Tv shows etc. Considering there's so many categories of film, they also have a Search bar. The IMDB Logo is also a hyperlink which can be refreshed when clicked on to go back to the main screen of the website.
The marvel website, which has a lot of features on ranging about the films on all Marvel films itself, is another comparison and some insight if my Irishman website. On top of the screen on the Marvel website, it has hyperlinks which will show a smooth overlay of what you hovered your mouse over the screen. It has a list of categories of Marvel's films, tv shows and characters + history. My Irishman website goes through a similar technique which therefore is explaining the movie up front with no spoilers or too much dialog leaks. The marvel website is also collaborated with DIsney+ a Film and TV show broadcasting company, similar to Netflix.
The Target audience for marvel on where i put it is 8 years old to 30 years old. The website and the films both have a kid friendly persona and Marvels films PG rating is 12+, also they have things rated for a much younger audience both on their website and films again. The Irishman is rated a 15, but my website is an all age persona with a mild violence warning towards the watching the film. Marvel's USP is that it's a massive company with budgets of millions of dollars put into films and the benefit is that it has a billion in the box office.
A Navigation bar on top of the Marvel's studios' website which is easy to see and it's got all the selectable interactive buttons to show what you want to see underneath. You can then click on what you want to see and details about that choice will then be refreshed on another page just for you.
Graphic Design
Colour Theory is based on how many colours there are, because there's so many shades of colour that they can't be all all named, so they're given ID's especially on software. The Main colours are Blue, Red and Yellow. Colour Pallets on software are used for mixtures of colours and there's 1000s of different shades with codes which are used for design, you can save colour codes for future design.
Visual Communication are clever secrets hidden in Logos or brands for a deeper meaning of the company on what they do, a personal one or an origin. It's a little easter egg for smart audiences to find in their Logo's for fun.
Layout and Composition is the first form of Graphic Design involving websites with logo and lining on how it's going to be made. Layout and Composition are two different things put together first, Layout is shape, colour, line, space, texture and type. While Composition is totally different in a way with painting and photography, which is the creative part.
Typography is the font in Logos or how they're designed by using 1 or 2 more fonts to make it stand out more. It can come in all different styles, artistic, cartoon, serious, dark and etc. It's to make the text more unique to catch the eye of someone or people to checkout the series. e.g. the Stranger Things logo has 2 fonts with the S and R both being bigger and the rest normally sized. Using a very similar font from a logo by a company can lead to copyright.
Aesthetic Appeal is a portrait of a person or landscape taken by photography at a certain angle. It captures the details of the person e.g. Face, hat and clothes. in Photoshop if put into a frame it will be lined out in small squares each covering a certain part of the person organising it. The photo can be edited in many different ways to make it more appealing if it was used for a brand like clothing, or it can just be used normally but the photo taken on a very high quality camera and be used for photography or gallery.
Practical Lesson Reflections
07/11/19 Adobe after effects is an animation/video software: I used Adobe After effects from a document by saving it into desktop then inserting 3 images into After affects. To control and organise the image size i used "ctrl +" and "ctrl -" I also used the same but with "shift".
tarted an animation in Adobe After Affects by pressing the image bars in the import and clicking below "transform" then at the bottom theres a button called "opacity". At the start changing opacity to 0 then changing the number as the seconds in the video which to do press "space bar" goes on. At the start opacity on both must be on 0. Then i Changed the preset to 1080 25 which means frames per second and next changed the duration to 15 seconds. Then after made the background colour purple (choice of colour)
Experience
Learning Adobe After affects was mostly easy while following the steps forward, just getting used to new Adobe layouts takes a bit but getting used to it quickly after. Following the Instructions at a normal paste is a good 100%.
Batman Logo Animation
Followed A tutorial on how to do a less than 10 second animation with a background of a city and a logo for Batman. Clicked on the tabs in import and pressed "Transform" and used Scale, Rotation and Opacity for creating the animation. I practiced the timing and fading in with the Batman Logo to get the timing exactly right for the Batman Logo spinning and appearing bigger, i placed the Batman logo as a very small figure on the screen (barely visible) and changed Rotation and Opacity's digits from 0 to a specific number for size of the Logo when it was appearing on screen getting bigger until the Opacity timing ran out.
Soundscape
Research Summary
I learned through a Eight step tutorial on how to make a scenery of a sound which was realistic. The sounds came in 4 different folders > City sound, door sound, footsteps and Restaurant background noise. Soundscape is the concentration of learning through sound which is similar to a landscape, it has to blend in and be realistic sounds whether what location it is in. For this soundscape it was in a city approaching a restaurant.
Creating
One: I created the project in "Tab" with next to it called "Multi-track session. Next what i had to do was when the Multi track Session bar came up i had to name the project "Soundscape" with none of the other details needing change.
Importing Sounds
The 4 sounds i had to pull up from downloads on the same screen as Adobe Audition and then 1 by 1 pull those sounds into my tracks on the top left next to the editing. Then i had to place sounds onto different tracks in the bar, so sounds can be more controlled easily on how i wanted them to make it less confusing. So i organised them from top to bottom on tracks and played with sound lengths.
Arranging the Sounds
My project was to recreate the sounds of someone walking in a town coming into a restaurant, whilst opening the door as they went in, which needed to be blended in, because the footsteps at the first half are loud alongside with the city background, but than the restaurant is louder as they go in, distancing the footsteps to where they can be barely heard when walking in.
When organising the sounds and putting them in different tracks i used the magnifier bar to zoom in or out to see any important parts in the track.
Editing Sounds
I had the choice to crop or expand the sounds in different tracks to combine them all together at the correct times to make it realistic. My finished soundscape was at 25 seconds. Next i had to balance the sounds, and next to each track on line was the volume, this had to be played with to make the sound of 1 individual sound realistic e.g. the walking on the curb had to be louder than the background noise.
Fade Out
Before the restaurant sound affect comes in i had to fade out the city sound, so this needed to blended in which i did. At the end of each editing track i had to click on the track and at the end of the wave-sound there was a small grey box, i had to drag the wave-sound than a yellow line would be the new blending in feature for the sound, before a sound is about to change or go quiet. It made my sound more smoother when going into the restaurant instead of an abrupt end.
Adding Effect
Just above the volume in the tracks (for each track) there is a button called "FX" i had to click that and turn it blue, i had to zoom in my toolbar so the FX slots would appear. I clicked on track > Reverb > Full Reverb. This would give the footsteps ambience because it was adding reverb (this works for only 1 sound turned on in tracks). This made the footsteps basically louder and more sounding like they were stepping on a pavement. There were different types of Reverbs in a bar that popped up, i used the 3rd Reverb sound affect "Church"
Finishing the Project
I experimented with the fades and blending in sounds for each track before finishing my Project, i tested it and played it to make sure it sounded realistic with no sound errors or abrupt stops in sound. I went into file > Export > Multi-Track Mix down > Entire Session. To Save the project and render it + Saving it in Desktop.
My Finished Logo after Completing the Tutorial
Motobike Logo
Research Summary
I made the File and named it Moto-bike Logo and changed the Preset to HDTV 1080 25 and changed the duration to 15 seconds.
Making it
I had 2 Logos from from Q-drive to put onto Adobe After Affects, i clicked on 1 Logo 1 at a time from folders and put them in input. Then i had to fix the screen size for the Moto-bike text to fit in by ctrl and +/- on PC. (Putting the text central on the screen) I opened up Effects and Presets on the left of the screen and searched up Snowfall, while i had my mouse on the background image so it implements the snow into effect into the background. I then changed the snowflakes size to 10 and the amount of snowflakes to 40000.
How the Animation was Made
I then used CC Light-sweep to give the text a special font animation over the screen before the background blends out into clear white, so on the left side of the screen there is a Rotation that puts a blue tiny circle on the screen and it controls the white font animation going across the Text, then, In input i went to the Bike-text logo and pressed CC Light-sweep. I made an Opacity start and Finish point whilst it controls the duration time, that also was a blend in feature i used for the ending of the animation which made the background go completely white, the time for the animation was just after 6 seconds long.
For the ending part to save i exported the Project to Media encoder queue and saved it in a good quality of 1080p which means it can be uploaded to YouTube. I saved it into Desktop and then the Adobe version into Desktop as well.
Pre-Production
Garage band / QuickTime Player
Website Music
I learned how to Zoom in and Zoom out on a Mac by pressing Alt & + or - in settings by changing it to Zoom.
Afterwards we selected a tool named Quick player by clicking into little microphone on the top right on the screen in the corner and going into Search and Typing 'quick'. Then accessing the microphone. I then got onto my practice website and pressed Record on Quick player and gave a brief tutorial practice without Voice on my website which ended up being less than 1 minute long.
Next I went into Garageband by opening it up on Trash in the tabs menu on the bottom of the screen then looking for it in alphabetical order. I opened it up and for what type i wanted it to be i pressed Audio than had my own page of it set up ready to go. Next i got my Recorder of my website from Desktop and minimised the screen for Garageband and copied the Recorder video from my website which was in its own tab on the home screen over into Garageband. I then learned how to combine different soundtracks from different genres, put them into different tracks and raise or lower the volumes and then learning how to copy and paste different sound genre's i had implemented onto a track.
My Thoughts
I kept up good with the lesson and moving on forwards with next steps following each in time and doing it in time. Experimenting with Garageband was very similar to other software I've used here so it's not difficult which for me which is good.
My Music for Background Effect on my Website
1 to 15 seconds long
Avengers Logo Animation
In Adobe After Affects I had to make a Logo Animation with several Effects added to it. First i saved The Avengers Logo and then the tutorial into Desktop, opened up Adobe and copied the Logo into import. Beforehand, when opening up Adobe, the settings for the Page had been auto-corrected for me but i had to change the background colour to Dark-grey. After, when i got the Logo and Background set up, i went into Effects and Presets and typed 'Stars', it changed the background to a star animation. Next For the Logo and Lining around it, i had to create a square in shapes and make the edges circled. Then i had to fit the Avengers Logo in the Circled rectangle which now is all coloured a bright yellow. For the shape layer which is the Line around the Logo I had to click on the little arrow in the bar in input and go into contents and change 'Start' to 0, which would change the line around the shape to disappear around the Logo left or right.
I then watched the Tutorial for the rest of making the Logo/Animation process following steps 1 by 1 at a medium paste. My finished Animation is in the Picture Below.
I had a problem with Opacity not fully fading in my Avengers Logo throughout the animation but the animation came out good and alike to the tutorials.
For an extra optional Task after creating the Avengers Logo I started making a RedBull Logo which is also in Media Studies. I experimented with Opacity and Rotation with quick affects for RedBull's Logo.
Adobe Illustrator
On Thursday 28/11/19 we had a lesson instructed and taught by A.K. At the start of the lesson he talked about his background on working with Media related companies which could be jobs for us as a career in the future. He discussed about different type of companies he worked for, what they do and what they would like to do. Mostly it was Logo's or brand depending on what type of Company, but it was a talk about how Companies create creative Logo's or trying to prove to the world on different and futuristic technology's.
Next, A.K. guided us on Adobe Illustrator, First I opened up Illustrator > Created New > clicked on Web > Web Large 1920 x 1080 > Pixels. We experimented with shapes which was essential to the first steps of making a Logo. I got a Circle Shape, and Rectangle to go around it. I made sure The circle was Centred in the middle and the Rectangle around the Circle was also centred around the shape. I Then got a Line from Shapes, Balanced on where i was going to put the line from the circles Centre, so on top of the circle, i was going to put the line which was directly on top but centred on the circle (aka a watermark called Anchor will pop up). Next I got another line, Placed it on-top of the Line which was now on the circle, another watermark called Anchor would pop up, I placed the line on-top and angled it down to the circle touching it with Anchor. Next I would do the exact same thing but on the other side, both were on left and right sides. Next I held down shift and held the left click and pressed the Triangular looking shape created out of the Lines on-top of the circle. Then I would make that Shape completely 1 in-tact shape by combining it together. (So the centre line will no longer be there).
Next Shift and hold doing left click throughout the entire shape including Rectangle
Making the Triangles on-top of the circle go all around the Circle creating a Pattern
Changing the Rectangles Rotation and creating multiple Rectangles for a Visual-Pattern effect
A.K's Presentation Notes
Project Modus
Angle's and Symmetry (120 degrees) - Made Equal for visual and Design Performance on how it should look like and therefore it should look clean.
Star Wars Fan Film
Made for a Fans and the Logo has a Reference which is the Coffee Mug in the Logo which dates back to Star War's Original 1977 Film - A New Hope. The Logo was created through drawing.
P&M Services
The Main features on the logo are Aesthetic, Bold and Style. The Logo design goes well for people to understand it's an Engineering company.
Learning - Personalised Branding
A.K Taught us about that creating a Logo or Brand Company Dynamic that it must be Unique, It's own style, never seen before and original- That it must fit with what the audience (type) want and the Brand itself.