DEVERIDGE+Lachlan

Evolving Technologies Task - Term 4, 2011 Sunday, 30th October, 2011 - 1st Entry The Task: To create a personal project, which has some connection to technology. My Initial Thoughts: Considering the lack of information available regarding the assessment, my current thoughts are skeptical of the purpose and outcome of the task. Considering it is currently week three of term four, and the School Certificate is only a week away which leads to Year 10 Activities, the ability to create a complete project in a matter of a week including idea generation ect. is daunting. I am unknowing why this assessment is weighted equally to a full term assessment. I believe it will be a challenge. My Initial Ideas: Over the past three weeks, I have contemplated creating something based on the schools Farkwa initiative, the reason why I have chosen Farkwa is because I believe there is so much more potential for Farkwa online to capture the school communities and the Newcastle Community so they can learn and discover Farkwa and its significance. In my application for the 2012 tour to Farkwa I suggested this and now I want to create a full web suite (Website, Blog, ect.). My goal before the tour is to have the website operational and getting hits. I was considering taking this opportunity to create the whole website and receive a mark for it, but with limited time, I have decided just to create a fully designed WordPress blog, which would be later attached to the website. I believe WordPress is the most easy to change, host and allow for my creative juices to flow without the hassles of coding (I'll leave that to the website). I'm looking forward to the task and hope its turns out well. I've attached some WordPress blogs which highlight the blog site. Tuesday, 1st November, 2011 - 2nd Entry Today was our double period, and I achieved minimal results. The limitations of the schools network, wont allow me to achieve the results I desire therefore I will just attempt to continue with the website. Today I began the basic steps towards a clean website. I've been using the adobe tutorials which allow me to better understand Dreamweaver in a simple manner. I learnt how to instead of grids to create the website ad liv which selects a pre-described area for media. My outlook looks bleak but hopefully I achieve something before Friday  

 Digital Media Task - Term 3, 2011 - Fear

Friday, 22nd July, 2011 - 1st Entry
The Task: To compose a video composition exploring an aspect or aspects of emotions.

My Initial Thoughts: I am looking forward to the concept of this task as it has endless possibilities, the ability to voice my opinion and creative view on the human condition. This task will explore the power of emotions in life and allow to reach out into the community through video. The theory concept of the task is quite extensive for the topic and I'm looking forward to exploring the theory of video composition

My Initial Ideas: I wish to portray a negative emotion as the power behind portraying a message is stronger. I haven't chosen an emotion but I have a general idea of what I want to explore. Linked below is Fingerprints by Sparkadia, Sparkadia is an alternative band from Sydney, Australia and feature regularly on Triple J and other alternative sites. This song explores a negative emotion and could be worked to create a journey or experience

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<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Tuesday, 26nd July, 2011 - 2nd Entry I am contimplating woking power and the consequences of power into my project. Power has a enormous influence in current western society, while this may benefit many individuals, the negititive is also revealed. Power also has influences on many other topics while also being a emotion (i.e. powerful). Conformity has a strong connection with power and can be effectivly intertwined into the emotion while revealing other avenues like leadership, past mistakes driven from power, for example the rise and fall of Hitler, all driven from power. I want to create a tasteful representation of power while portraying a powerful message of the results of power. As these are still preliminary ideas, the content isn't refined therefore over the course of idea generation, the ideas will be developed further

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<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 23px;">Tuesday, 2nd August, 2011 - 3rd Entry Over the past week I have concentrated my ideas on a more particular emotion rather than a broad subject. In other words, I have changed my topic again, hopefully for the last time but I believe this emotion can be quite powerful if interpreted in the appropriate manner. I have chosen the emotion of fear. The fear I wish to convey though this task is, the fear of losing something or someone close or the fear of alienation or paranoia. My inspiration for this idea is from a song which was randomly playing on MTV a matter of minutes ago. The song is more a electronic track but I believe the strong beat would assist in transitions of images and footage. The song is "Changed the Way You Kissed Me" by Example. The song opens with the line, "I've never been afraid of the highest heights, Or afraid of flying now, I've never been afraid of the wildest fights, Not afraid of dying, But now I want off this ride 'cause you're scaring me and I don't like where we're going, I need a new fun fair 'cause you're scaring me and I don't like where we're going." These lyrics I believe build on the condition of fear as an emotion, enjoy

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<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Tuesday, 9th August, 2011 - 4th Entry
Today is our double period and after a period of "emerging technologies", I decided to give up my attempts and move on to the assessment task. I am now looking for slow song to start the project, something that still represents my emotion of fear while goinging a tad deeper into the depths of the emotion. Fear is a delicate topic, but can be swallowed by the overlooming tacky moral that is the, "oh no! A really tall tower ahhh!!" but I want to find the emotive compassionitive aspect of the topic. I am curious to which progam we are useing to create the video as i believe i need to get familiar to dive right into the production process. I am currently most familiar with iMovie but i would like to try the new Sony Vegas software ive heard so much about, The features look hard to grasp and the UI seems to be difficult and the the benefit of having imovie at home allows for me to have extra time to produce the task. Here is just a little something I thought I should post. media type="custom" key="10156571" align="center"

<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Thusday, 11th August, 2011 - 5th Entry
Today I have strolled across this composer which features in the previous video, his name is Simon Wilkinson. He tends to be a more a film and media composer and has a lot of orchestral works. It's quite moving stuff, I was looking forward to using his works but I don't believe his style of music will work with what I've currently used. There are many composers out there with simple cinematic compositions which reflect many different emotions, the challenge is just fining them.

<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Wednesday, 24th August, 2011 - 6th Entry
It has been a while since my last edit but I believe I have achieved a great deal and changed my path a minor fraction. I have completed the audio track to my short film, it comprises of two songs cut and copied to form a continuous song, these are: > This song, I believe, captures fear and turned it upside down in a joyful manner, the clip shown is through clay animation and made through over one thousand images. What is really amazing is that was one entry from hundreds of entries that was to be the video (I am unknowing if this won, but I believe its probably the best). The entry was composed by a 15 year old, which I think is pretty cool. I am now focusing on the video and timing of the video. For the tittles and credits, I found an idea of just images of the words in different environments (link attached). The link is all shot on an iPhone in Sydney and New York and was submitted into Movie Extra's Tropfest (Flickerfest). Enjoy!
 * Changed the Way You Kissed Me by Example (seen above) and,
 * You Don't Scare Me by Josh Pyke

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<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Saturday, 27th August, 2011 - 7th Entry
Fear is currently endemic on the human race, as more dangers are are becoming a reality, people are becoming fearful of others. I have come up with an idea to begin my film (video), creating fear with real life events past and present, this represents the struggle between good and bad and raises awareness with current affairs. An example of an event is the recent riots in London, these created a great sense of fear between western nations as lower socioeconomic groups typically unemployed, and have no reason to live, rebel against the government and police. This triggered a wave of fear all over western countries as a nation so developed as England can still have rebels and rebellion. there was also fear for an international wave of riots triggered by this one event. Thankfully this didn't happen and the riots were under control. As a new wave of social networking through websites like Facebook and Twitter create an easy way for individuals to communicate.This allows for hate to be especially concentrated and easy ways to gather individuals with similar ideas. This is just one example of of fear as a global community.

On the making of the film, I have found Russia Today on YouTube which has an endless source of raw current affairs (without narration). There slogan is Question More which I find quite cool. This will most likely be the primary source for //current// clips. I am also in the process of sourcing clips from past events like the Holocaust and the Vietnam War, I'm curious as to how gruesome the clips can be, but I still want that element of fear in the audiences response but don't want to make them sick....

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<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Monday, 29th August, 2011 - 8th Entry
Today during school I had an out of the blue epiphany about my video, I had to change it. I'm glad this came to me at an early stage rather than after i have completed the video. The music doesn't work with what I'm trying to convey with my meaning, it's way too shallow. What was I thinking? Dance/Electronic Music with events where people are dying, and in pain, Its just not right. I plan to change my original song Changed The Way You Kissed Me by Example to Mad World by Gary Jules, which suits my emotion which I'm trying to portray.

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<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Saturday, 3rd September, 2011 - 8th Entry
I need to add a proper theme to follow beside what i've got, Im thinking along the lines of a long clip like a motage, broken up thoughout the video, the only problem is sourcing the fottage for that. For some reason whereever I turn on YouTube, there is just nothing, you would think with 2 days worth of content uploaded every minute there would be something around which I could use. I have tried looking at review sites but they contain content which has no interest for me. The reason I chose major events are that they are an abundance of content, but how much can someone watch of continuous clips of what they've already seen. The originality factor, I have to admit is the hardest part of video. I am loosing faith in the task, it doesn't have the same excitment at the begining of the term, I hope I can reserect my idea but but the flame has been distinguished.

<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Tuesday, 6th September, 2011 - 9th Entry
With just over a week until due date and only a minute worth of footage with no ultimate plan or structure, the process of and timing is currently not gaining momentum. I believe this can be resolved through creating a strong script like plan which will create the momentum needed to make the deadline for my video.
 * Scene || Video || Transition || VideoAudio || Music || Title Overlay ||
 * 1 - 0:00 || Alternate clips of current world events || Simple Cut || 50% || Mad World by Gary Jules || Quotes scatered across the clips. ||
 * 2 - 1:00 || Perspective clip following a person. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||

<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Saturday, 10th September, 2011 - 10th Entry
After eight weeks of idea generation, I have finally have a solid legitimate idea which I am following through to the end. This idea builds on what I've currently got in current affairs and is completely relevant to whats currently happening in the world today. The 11th of September, 2001 changed the world and created another level of fear onto the climate. This day marked a new turn for America and the rest of the world, it began a war on terror and sadly took so many lives. Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centre, the pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania. Therefore I have decided to mark this event with a video to honor those who tragically lost their lives on that day.

I have a found a quality documentary which details the events of 9/11, it's called Inside 9/11: Zero Hour. It was created by National Geographic in 2006. The documentary features minute by minute details and include loads of footage. Linked is the whole documentary, and is a good watch. media type="youtube" key="M-B6c6xxXug" height="345" width="420" align="center"

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Map of Ground Zero: media type="custom" key="10418662"

<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Sunday, 11th September, 2011 - 11th

9:20 am Today is the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia. At this time 10 years ago, the second plane just hit the south tower of the World Trade Center. In a hour over 2,977 were murdered by 19 hijackers.

9:48 am My goal for today is to finish the video completely in honor of the anniversary. I have finished the first half of my video covering the events that took place on that day primarily focusing on the World Trade Center.

12:49 pm I am currently at 4 minutes with the inclusion of then President Bush speech after the attacks of the World Trade Center. I have included a backing to his speech of Imagine by John Lennon, this creates a strong emotion to the passion of his speech.

2:09 pm I have decided to tribute the last minute to the new Trade Center Site in New York which features reflecting pools where the towers stood, a museum and a transport hub. I believe reflection is a necessary step in the grieving process, and having a place to grieve add a sense of closure to an individual.

3:20 pm I have completed my video, all contents are complete including timings and titles ect. Looking forward to post it on YouTube for the 10th anniversary of the attacks in America.

4:04 pm I am having trouble with the saving process of the file. I hope it can be resolved as soon as possible.

5:46 pm In all my efforts to upload the video, i have come up with nothing. I have used 2 computers, one XP and one 7, converters after converters, changing setting within Movie Maker and a whole lot more, and nothing has worked. I am overly frustrated, and I'm hard to be frustrated. I haven't achieved my goal but i completed the video, I'm hoping a solution can achieved by Thursday or my efforts will be a waste. My new goal is to have it uploaded to YouTube by Thursday. This is my final post for today, and maybe for the assessment, I will try to keep you posted. For now ill be posting other tributes to 9/11.

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<span style="color: #c0c0c0; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Evaluation:

Over the past term, this task has captured and changed ho I look at digital media, the finite details and the hidden messages the composer wishes to convey. This task I believe has been one of the best tasks in the IST course, even though the technological aspects aren't as stimulating as other topics like web design or program design, the processes and details of the task like sourcing clips from an endless mix of videos and arranging them to make sense on the screen is admittedly a daunting task.

During this task I believe I have applied myself directly to this task, and I hope this is eminent through my work. I have found this task essentially difficult at some times during the creative process. This is represent through the number of idea changes shown throughout my blog. I have worked constructively during and outside of school hours, this defines my passion for the subject and this topic.

Before this task I had not had any interest in the field of film production and post video production, but currently I'm curious to delve deeper into the area of work. The topic only represented a mere fraction of the possibilities of the field and the opportunities in this field would be great.

As I said earlier, the technological aspect of this topic wasn't challenging. I believe MovieMaker on XP isn't the most complicated piece of software software around, this can be a positive and a negative at the same time. On the positive side, there is less that can go wrong even though things still go badly in MovieMaker. On the negative side, I believe my work was diluted down due to the lack of functions MovieMaker has compared to more modern suites of software, like Sony Vegas and iMovie.

Overall MovieMaker has achieved my vision for a film but I believe with more features the work could have been at a more advanced level. At the moment, I'm currently having difficulties with the exporting of my film, this is another major drawback and hop it can be resolved in the near future.

The theory component of the topic was very balanced with the practical component, this I believe is necessary as it lays the foundations for the practical assessment. If there is too much theory, we don't get enough time for the assessment or if we get too little theory we don't have a clue as to whats going on. The theory wasn't necessarily the hardest aspect of the course nor the most challenging but it greatly helped in the overall assessment.

The idea generation to me was the most difficult part of the assessment, out of all the emotions, I had to choose one and that was a mere stab in the dark for me. The emotion of fear, I believe, had a greater depth to it rather than something like humor which only has one direct level to it. Fear I believe has a certain power to it, it can control people and have the ability to have an influential power on an individual.

Wikispaces: the blank canvas to my ideas. The blog portion of the assessment task, would have to be my favorite aspect of the assessment. In the 2,800 words I've written on this blog, my ideas have evolved, changed and transformed into my final evaluation. I believe the blog is a more powerful tool than the portfolio. The portfolio is generally a rush at the end of assessment task, a scramble of ideas on the last day of the task. The blog **has** to be completed over time, where like a logbook create a running commentary of ideas and issues. Over the past term, Iv'e used this blog as a form of entertainment, procrastination and many others. I'm completely happy with my blog and the result of my blog and I hope this process will be used in my senior years.

In consideration for the many events this term including other subject assessments, examinations, Year 10 Production, and other school events my time management has worked well. On recollection, I believe I may have spent too much time on this assessment when focus should have been on other events, but I'm fine with it. As this is the last examinable topic in the IST course, I believe its well worth it.

Overall this topic has been fantastic, I've enjoyed every minute of it, from blogging, to cutting clips, to changing ideas. I've had fun. I hope you enjoy what I've done with this blog and my final result of my video. Enjoy!