Beautiful Sunsets and Fisheyes 1:34 pm

Long time awaiting a wide angle lens, i finally executed a hot photo-shoot at Temple Newsam and the surrounding gardens. I just as i thought i had exhausted this place of photographs, i decided to try something new. Up until last night i have only ever took photographs during the day, so i challenge myself to do some nocturnal photography. As i ventured into the unknown, i was skeptical on what what about to be, and to my amazement, almost every photo i took looked amazing, although it was dark, there was a slight purple/red fade on the horizon, by exposing the camera, it picked these details up better that the eye can.

Here are some of the results, and bare in mind that i have done no color editing on them:



The mansions floodlights supplied some really nice light and shadows, and helped to produce this unrealistic feel that the images possess.

The gardens water fountain:



Please comment, Crit and enjoy =D

Looking at "Idents" 11:52 am

When Reading the brief for the first time, I had to sit and ask myself "what is an ident" this small little word of mystery, of course i had my gut feeling as to what it may be, but was not sure all the same. So to clear this little problem I had, by doing a little research into what its actual meaning was, i have not only found out for a fact what it actually means in the broadcasting world, but it has aided me to do more detailed and productive research on source material. The best description of "ident" also known as a "sounder or stinger" came from Wikipedia under "Station Identification" it displays a great description for someone like myself who has very little knowledge on what the word actually means.

Description Below:


from reading this, have now gathered that a channel or radio station uses an "ident" as a mark/tag or signature in a more creative and visually exiting way, by making this attractive it also works as a memory imprint to lure people into watching the station/ listening to the radio similar to advertising. When thinking of a really good existing example that i can analyze and inspire from, it clicked to look at the infamous channel four moving shape idents, as they are relevant to the same channel as the brief, and they also pack a punch of visual effects and are very memorable.

The Youtube Video Below Has Some Of The Best Examples:


some nice visual effects in those idents, but as i am aware these are idents for the channel alone, to do a "FEAR SEASON" will include footage of films that will be featuring on the "FEAR SEASON" including a signature ident to the channel, in the briefs case, this is channel 4 too. So in terms of research i need to look at and analyze how idents work alone, and how they work along side an advertisement for a series/season. also i believe it will be beneficial to look at how the footage in these adverts is structured by considering aspects such as the editing of footage, and he footage to moving graphic ratio, and in addition to this, researching and analyzing some physiological and thriller movies will help to inspire and develop some scene ideas for the story boarding of my own " FEAR SEASON ON CHANNEL 4"

found some idents for the BBC although personally i feel there not as identifiable as the channel 4 versions

Ident mntage For BBC ONE:


Ident montage For BBC TWO:

Visual Effects And Motion Graphics 8:21 pm

After a long hard night at work yesterday evening, and an even harder day of racking my pounding head for some inspiration on the new brief now brings me to writing up the first blog of the project, and on that note, the academic year. Yesterday when I received the briefing on the Visual Effects Module, I had mixed feelings towards it. The brief in itself appeared to be a great, but I was in a way over anticipating how good it actually was, knowing about it from the end of the first year, I have allowed my self to build up expectation of a more open approach, and had all these ideas floating about in my head. As i know know, the brief is very specific and landed me and my pre return stewing brain right back to square one (I see this as a positive thing of course) Back to last night then, from the moment I had left college, there was a tie between the UFO-SI-FI Channel and the FEAR-Channel 4 breakouts, by the end of my shift, I had come to the decision of following the FEAR breakout. what were my reasons? I hear you all cry! Well I believe that the main and most academically justifiable explanation would be that the skills involved in creating "visual" and "emotional" material that is convincingly scary is by far the hardest emotion to capture. At this point of self assessment in my head, I was thinking.. OK so I have chosen FEAR, and to make this achievable, I am going to have to produce some pretty convincing material that can pass for hollywood quality SAW style horror, or its possible to go for a more comedy horror, with all the exaggerated blood and guts? but the brief does state psychological and thriller movies, so that narrows that pathway down to a prefered advantage. After a crap nights sleep due to suffering from the infamous man flu, I have been filtering through some DVDs to filter out some really nice inspirational source material that I can sigh at and say, ohh how I wish I could do that! But seriously, I have watched some nice motivating stuff today, especially on the good old Extra Features.

To start with, one of my favorite Shane Meadows films:

DEAD MANS SHOES



A great film to watch for gritty down to earth realistic horror, but with a twist of good nature mixed in to the chaos. Dead mans shoes is all about that grey "elephant man" gas mask, its unbelievably chilling, and awesome at the same time. As all gas masks are genuinely scary, when captured correctly on camera, they can send shivers down the spine, as it plays on that human cover up deformity feel. As i watched, and took note of the film, the use of sudden cut shots where an appearance is made then vanishes all of a sudden works wonders, its like a shark in deep water, you would prefer have a visual on the sharks thin "gas mask man" because when you loose that visual, all becomes calm, and that is even more terrifying.




Screenshot of the Gas Mask - Dead Mans Shoes

So the point i am trying to aim at from this particular film is that the sudden shock of this gas mask, then for it to disappear, this is the kind of material that makes us jump, and thus makes me think hold on, i can recreate this in my own style, its just considering where to put it into a television advertisement structure? at the moment I am not too sure how film season adverts look, or how they are structured. But this is something to look at as well as such inspiring source material such as this.

Promotional Material 6:31 pm

During My college warm up period, I have been heavily involved with my band and our current run to get back on track. We have suffered a deadly year with our guitarist leaving, we managed to find a new guitarist who is amazing, and now the original guitarist has come back to the family.. thus engaging us to become awesome once again! we have been working very hard to get back into the groove of things, and we have produced some exiting new material, and hope to be giging before we see the year out!

But thats not the point of this blog, as i was saying about being heavily involved with this in terms of college, i have produced some new graphics for promotion and maybe even my first long awaited T-shirt design.

The design is still a working progress for final production, but is starting to take shape:



Maybe a little rude for a sensitive soul, although it doesn't bother me in the slightest, its a work of art, all digitally produced by graphic tablet and photography, followed by production in photoshop. Am still yet to send it into the world of the bands Myspace page to be rated by the people who matter.. the fans and band members alike! but all the creatives out there, give it a good citing

Second Life: Phonebox 3:39 pm

3D Modeling: Phonebox



Through recent creative struggles, I have produced something worth showing with no pre intentions of doing so. While checking out second life again after a long break away from it, i decided to test my building skills by recreating a imitation phonebox.
With the object being very squared and ridged, this made the building process fairly unchallenging in terms of technical and complex building, but hey, am happy with the outcome no matter how much, or should i say how little effort it took.