Flash rationale.

Flash. Now. I could have really loved flash, it does things I like. Makes things sharp (sometimes) and interactive (sometimes, if you do parts of it right), and it makes websites. Flash I actually found quite easy and interesting to use the more I used it. Coding was the hard part for me, and also embedding of film and sound. I mean, most websites don't have film or sound and are still fully entertaining and we waste hours and hours and days and months of which we should be doing other things. No names, but it begins with an F and ends with a K.(yes I am fully aware that facebook doesn't use flash) So as far as I'm concerned, flash can just be about creating pretty, moving pictures, that don't have any sound or imagery. Personally I think I would have preferred to create a mock website rather than a quiz, but I know about 5% of what actually goes into a website so I won't start that. I found it hard to get a practitioner to base my work on for a start as there is only so much creativity you can put into a quiz. I looked at one which was all film and timing. (I think it was on pentagram) I looked at quizzes which where all text, which when done right I feel are the best, cause who does a quiz for fun, in reality? I finally decided to base my quiz on QI, televised quizzes are the only things question related I can really lend my attention span to, and so went on the search for random questions which had not so obvious answers, which I think for the majority of people between the ages of 18-25, lets say, this would be the case. I went through a few ideas for layouts and decided plainer the better, everytime I added more colour, a random background or whatever else I felt it looked tacky and took it out. I'm not gonna lie, my flash looks boring, and I could have done so much more with it but I wanted readability and consistancy so I just stuck with boring. When it came to embedding clips I had a horrific time. I had originally tried to embed clips in my visual essay and when this didn't work switched from flash to powerpoint, then when I came to my quiz I thought I might have learned a thing or two from my experiments in flash earlier on, this didn't happen and I found that clips wouldn't play, then would play with no sound, then sound would play. Long story short - it wasn't happening, and with a deadline and an essay looming I just wanted to get it over with, so rather than spend hours and hours pulling my hair out, I submitted what I feel was a substandard yet not overly bad looking flash project.

3d rationale.

Personally I feel that 3D was the area I struggled with most. The brief of a lair I found really appealing but in reality it was so much different than what I expected. I went through alot of ideas of what I wanted it to be. At first I looked into films with memorable settings, Willy Wonka (the original, of course), Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton's version) and Harry Potter. These films all rely quite heavily on the audiences reaction to the imagery. Largely I feel as they have all been adapted from books. These influences as a starting point made me want to do something which felt magical, and away from reality. I then looked more into specific artists. A large influence was Tim Walker, a photographer who's imagery relies heavily on our pre concieved idea's of fairytales and the stereotypes associated with them. Eugenio Recuenco was another photographer I looked at who uses similair subject matter, with a darker outcome. I began to sketch out ideas after collecting like, 100000000000000 photo's I could some how possibly relate to what I wanted from my final piece. Also during this time I started to imagine who was going to be my hero or villain. This captured my imagination a bit, and I was thinking about what I wanted to create first, and secondly how I could relate the ojects to my character. I finally decided on the tooth fairy. I wanted a character which lived in a huge spire, with a massive moon outside, with a lightswitch that could change from day to night, a huge clock. Lots of plush areas, and a Willy Wonka-esque room. Cause of course the Tooth Fairy has a sweet tooth. (ok maybe this character was based on me as I have a mad sleeping pattern - I blame this course, thanks - and a sweet tooth but whatever, ideas were flowing.) When it came to the design of my room I struggled, quite a lot, I don't know if it was lack of knowledge, or lack of motivation to go and find the information that would help me to create my piece. I found myself giving up everytime I came to a slight hurdle with 3dsmax, first of all I struggled to extrude walls, then objects were impossible to get to grips with, then lighting then this, then that, then blah blah blah, and I lost patience, which I'm really kicking myself for, because about 2 days before the project was due, I kind of realised what 3D was all about and why it wasn't working for me. I may not have learnt a great deal about 3DS Max from the 5 week project, but it's definately helped me to realise that I can't be good at everything and that some parts of this course I will struggle with more than others. It also made me realise that a job in 3D will 99.9% never be my life time achievement.

flash quiz

quiz created in flash by ~holleighwood on deviantART

Randomly quite inspiring

While doing a bit of research and procrastination I found this out about New Order's Blue Monday Sleeve...

Another notable feature of the sleeve is that it does not display either the group name nor song title in plain English anywhere. Instead the legend “FAC 73 BLUE MONDAY AND THE BEACH NEW ORDER” is represented in code by a series of coloured blocks. The key enabling this to be deciphered was printed on the back sleeve of the album, Power, Corruption & Lies. “Blue Monday” is one of several New Order releases from this time period to employ the colour code. The sleeve’s spine simply reads “FAC SEVENTY THREE”.

I love stuff like that!

Essay

Well I'm quite gutted but I think it's about time I gave up the losing battle with flash. Having a really bad time trying to embed videos which is so frustrating cause I spent ages making layouts and coding everything so it faded in Nicely :( but I've decided I might have an easier time using...POWERPOINT! UGH! But yeah let's just hope that doesn't fail to play every single thing I try to embed.

One of the images I may include in my essay, by Daniel Swan

:|

3D MAX I HATE YOU WITH AN ABSOLUTE PASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSION! It just CRASHEDDDDDDDDDDD when I FINALLY got round to doing something worthwhile. ARGH! AAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGH. So I've made my room...again...

:@

If I have to use 3d max ever again in my life it will be too soon.

3d Progress

....this is going to be a long day.

I'm going to blast this so, so, so, so, so loud when I finish this work

FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINAAAAAAAAAAAALYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY THE WEIGHT IS OFF OUR SHOULDERRRRRRRRRRS ........until then I'm gonna play it ridiculously loud through my headphones

Blog is in a bit of a state at the moment.. working on sorting it out so bear with me.. changing it cause a friend of mine said she tried to follow and couldn't :/

Working Contents Page

working contents page by ~holleighwood on deviantART

Finally got my contents page to load how I like, although now I kind of want to put that effect on each frame, which will get a bit annoying as I kind of don't know how I did it in the first place.. But still, at least I can now move on and start getting stressed about all the film I want to embed :)

YES!

The lighting effects in this video are soooooooooo good! My one and only hang up on this video is it's made me notice that the womans got a really annoying mouth, and its going to annoy me when I listen to them now :(

Well, well, well

Here I am again. Sleep deprived, with a mind going at a million miles an hour full of ideas, and nowhere to put them! I've promised myself that tomorrow I'm going to go and buy a sketchbook, and I shall carry it everywhere and then my life will be complete. I really want some overly baggy t shirts, and some high tops. I've got a major craving to rock out like I'm some kind of skater kid, and I will, soon.

Deer Brains  << I could read this blog all day everyday. Everything they post is just ........good.

And some random images I've saved over the past few days for good measure..

Just a little bit of procrastination

• Going to start a tumblr as a dumping ground for images. This is a work in process and I'll probably start it approx 26th May...

 Until then. the xx will get me through this work.

I also seriously want one of these tops.. I hope the gif works.. its playing up when I embed it here?

this shouldn't be a lifestyle blog but so what.

THESE

My final (definate) influences (I think)

Pierre Debuscherre

• I'm going to include his work for Raf Simons (he is head of their website design) 
• I'll also include his photography work for some of his various projects

Daniel Swan

• I am going to include some of his videos in which he experiments with manual and digital film
• I will put in some of his illustrations and designs

Nabil Elderkin

•  Uses similair techniques to Daniel Swan on a professional and international level
• Experimental in his style

OR Nicola Formichetti

• Leader in fashion direction and styling
• Experimental with setting, choices of clothes, consultant for a number of leading fashion brands, working on their image, business strategy, marketing processes or simply styling the campaigns.

Rihanna for Italian Vogue

These pictures are a few months old but I just have to post them cause they are amazingly styled...

This ones my favourite of the set.

I know this isn't a music blog

But I'm in a summery mood, and I'm listening to music that makes you think of being sat on a field with blazing sun and a 99, which really... is what I would rather be doing right now rather than work!

♥