Blog Entry 21 - Bibliography

[ONLINE] Available at: http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/2743/mp3/456942_SOUNDDOGS__do.mp3. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

Beep Wav Mp3 Sound Effects - Download. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.soundjay.com/beep-sounds-1.html. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

[ONLINE] Available at: http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s312/coolguy358/BlankError1.jpg. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

TV Static effect - YouTube . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E-MtJBAZvw. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

[ONLINE] Available at: http://blog.contextures.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/datavalcircle03.png. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

Computer Error Sounds | Effects | Sound Bites | Sound Clips from SoundBible.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://soundbible.com/1127-Computer-Error.html. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

[ONLINE] Available at: http://www.sounddogs.com/previews/2122/mp3/254341_SOUNDDOGS__co.mp3. [Accessed 08 May 2012].
[ONLINE] Available at: http://www.pacdv.com/sounds/interface_sound_effects/sound25.mp3. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

CD Skipping Sounds | Effects | Sound Bites | Sound Clips from SoundBible.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://soundbible.com/1195-CD-Skipping.html. [Accessed 08 May 2012].


Буратино финальная песня - YouTube . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWOxSQi6nvc&feature=related. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

[ONLINE] Available at: http://creattica.com/uploaded-images/0016/2159/speech-bubble-preview.jpg. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

[ONLINE] Available at: http://i811.photobucket.com/albums/zz40/Infomorph/Windows_7_-_Electronic_circuit.jpg. [Accessed 08 May 2012].


[ONLINE] Available at: http://myrandomchronicles.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/old_dark_room___premade_by_annewillems.jpg. [Accessed 08 May 2012].

font: digiface http://www.fonts101.com/fonts/view/Digital/11512/Digiface_Regular.aspx

Green screen recordings, done at the university of hertfordshire 18th April between 10 & 5
Script by Katie Smith

Sound Studio recordings done at the University of Hertfordshire 30th April between 10 & 11:30
Script by Toby Cooper

Blog Entry 20 - Everything completed

Total of 75 Hours work.

2 Hours visual.
3 Hours written work.
15 Hours Animating & Special effects.
50 Hours editing and Finalising.
4 Hours finishing last videos. (outtakes & showreel)
1 Hour Making the Poster.

Blog Entry 19 - Poster & Outtakes

For the exhibition I took the liberty of designing a poster. 

I used QR codes so that people at the exhibition can check out individual portfolios and the outtakes.

Because the outtakes aren't censored and they are 8 minutes long, they will not feature at the exhibition, so as an added bonus I added a QR code to link people to the youtube video of the outtakes.

QR Code 1: (My portfolio: http://www.tobyjamescooper.co.uk/)

QR Code 2: (Katie's Blog: http://theperfectwomanwmp.blogspot.co.uk/)

QR Code 3: (Sandy's Portfolio: http://www.sahandofficial.com/)

QR Code 4: (Andrea's favourite Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzqrXHELMGA&feature=g-upl)

QR Code 5: (The outtakes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS81YgFRtg4&feature=g-upl)

Poster

My Poster Design

The Outtakes

Blog Entry 18 - Video Commitment - Just awaiting sounds to be edited

I am almost finished, just waiting on Sandy to send me the last of the edited sounds.

So far I have spent the last two and a half weeks up until 3:00am getting these videos finished. In total I have worked out I have spent roughly 50 hours finilising and editing the footage. I spent 15 hours getting the template and animation done.

In total I have done 65 hours of editing on this entire project. 

As previously discussed I have used photoshop, illutrator, flash & After Effects.

In Photoshop I made the filters and photo manipulated designs.

In Illustrator I made the typography and odd little things.

In Flash to make the electric currents I used a motion guide line and designed a voltage to follow it.

The typography is animated via stop frame animation.

The green screen I added a shadow.

Keyed out the green using several tools to perfect it.

I adjusted the curves.

I edited the brightness and contrast.

I edited the hue and saturation.

I edited the exposure.

I masked the avatar footage as well to seperate the two avatars from being so close to each other.

I animated some effects on After Effects and at some points had to animated the masks.

I also added the special sound effects - knocking, censor beep, glitch sounds, computer voice and computer effects.

To get the sounds to Sandy I exported each video as a .WAV without the soundscape but with the sound effects, for him to manipulate and add a reverb to the sounds.

Video playlist:

Blog Entry 17 - The Sound Studio & Progress

Today we had our sound studio session to attend to, I wrote up the scripts for the group:
Sandy couldn't make it in today, but he used his own facilities to record his sounds and sent it to us.

Group Introductions

Loading Screen

The sound session went well, we got done quite promptly, allowing us time to finishing other deadlines. We still hadn't heard anything from Group 5 so I worked the script around it.


I have completed almost all the videos now, the only ones that are left are the ones that require these sound recordings also on the 25th April – I  fixed the idle chatter bugs (censorship and out of sync knocks).

Blog Entry 16 - Advertisement

On the 23rd of April we came in to be interviewed about the exhibition and our project as a team to advertise the sensations exhibition. The video is now up on youtube.

Blog Entry 15 - Tutorial

In this tutorial, we discussed and previewed our work to the tutors they were impressed and happy with the progress, Andrea also previewed her logo design that our tutors asked from us.

Non contributing members
Mekalia turned up today (the second time we have seen her in this project) to ask us on what we had done, we updated her and heard why she hasn't had any input. She stated that she has had other projects on.

I bit my tongue to save conflicts and demotivating our group; but after discussion it turned out I in fact had more deadlines than Mekalia, also Andrea has the same work she has (being on the same course), but we all have been capable of managing our time and working hard on this project and more importantly working hard as a team. Her lack of effort couldn't be justified.

I left the decision to Andrea and Katie to co-ordinate her and set work.

Updating this particular blog, this work that was set was not acknowledged again, delaying our group a bit because we had to catch up on the delegated work.

Advert
After talking to our tutors about our work, we were asked to feature in an advertisement scheme for the exhibition. This would mean as a group turning up and getting interviewed by other University students and then that video would be edited and put on youtube. We agreed on doing this.


Research
Group research (my research on 1, 4 & 5)
I enquired with the groups we did not have work for about their projects so we could piece together a new script for their "glitchy" introductions.

I spoke to Tom from Group 1 about their project, and discovered they are re-creating a piece done by Stelarc.

I also spoke to Matthew from Group 4:


I tried emailing members from Group 5, I think they were worried that we were trying to plagiarise their work or something because they ignored my emails.

Blog Entry 14 - Final Video Template

Final Video

Group 12 - Virtual Reality Tour Guides.

Sensations University Exhibition on Cyborgs & Virtual Realms.

Andrea Davis:

- Actress

- Co-Director

Katie Smith:

- Actress

- Writer

- Director

- Co-ordinater

Sahand Jalali ( http://www.sahandofficial.com ):

- Acter

- Music

- Sound

Toby Cooper ( http://www.tobyjamescooper.co.uk ):

- Acter

- Co-ordinater

- Photo manipulation

- Animation

- Video manipulation, editing & creating

Green screen:

Recorded at the University of Hertfordshire.

Video created using:

- Illustrater

- Photoshop

- Flash

- After Effects

(Video) Total time: 15 hours.

Sounds created using:

- Logic Pro 9

(Sound) Total time: 10 Hours

Blog Entry 13 - Early Video Prototypes

The progression 

Progression from earlier

Further Developments

Perfecting & Tweaking bugs

Blog Entry 12 - Green Screen Session

On the day of recording our tutor Chetna came down to help out. I discussed further our plan with her and she made me aware of the impossibility of completing the amount of work I set myself. I agreed and we worked out the kinks, I set it to one introduction each and several idle chatter videos. As well as Chetna making me aware that I didn't have to program the player, which was a huge sigh of relief!

We also worked out Katies script as she didn't fully understand the concept of having two avatars on at a time, and the possibility of three or even four glitching over the original two. Also because of the change in the workload some of the script became redundant, so we pulled the best bits from the script and used it as a guideline for us to improvise - under Katies directing.

We compromised and tweaked everything. Ready before the technician came and opened up. They were twenty minutes late. I think this was a mix up in booking time, because we turned up at 10:00am but they claimed we didn't turn up on the scheduled time.

Mekalia never turned up to document our group work or take photo's, as previously arranged.

On the day of recording our group formed a hierarchy and we established the peak of our group working abilities. We all took on responsibilities, all had a say and we functioned well as a group.

Andrea and Katie were both in charge of directing the proceedings, they did an excellent job of organising us and discussing how things should be done. Sandy was in charge of the sound and we all acted.

Chetna helped us capture the footage as well as share an input.

This is the point where I realised we moved past the storming stage, because we worked hard and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in the process, this reflects our attitudes in the recordings!

The day went well, however we had to miss out a few groups, but we booked out the sound studio and I said I would make that script and get the information, the idea is to make their introductions as a glitchy one. We also forgot to do our own introduction...so the same had to be done for our group.

Although Katie wrote the characters up; loosely based on our own characteristics. We still had to present our avatars in the same way we would have represented ourselves as an avatar on an online game for instance.

So for my Avatar I carefully planned how I would do this.

I picked an outfit and a username for my avatar to express my personality to the viewers, I’m a comic geek and superman is one of my favourite superheroes. As well as this most people relate me to superman because of my interest in comics and I quite often wear superman based t-shirts. So to portray my personality as an avatar I chose to wear a superman t-shirt. My username is the same username I use for everything, you can search it on google and find most of my profiles or work based on my username, it’s my first two initials, my surname and the year of my birth, again this is an expression of who I am.

On the day it took six hours to record everything. Then because they were recorded on a Mac, my hard drive wasn't compatible and formatting it at that point in time wasn't an option. We worked around it by using Sandy's macbook to collect the 72gb folder. We then spent two hours manually transferring them on to the uni computers: 4gb's at a time and then transferring them in to my hard drive. This took a further two hours to transfer and check.

In this time I worked on a prototype:

First attempt

Blog Entry 11 - Green Screen Preparation

 For the Green Screen preparation I previously mentioned Katie wrote up a script, this was finalised when Andrea & Sandy got the information from most of the other groups, there was 3 groups we did not get information from.

To ensure we got all the recordings done I produced a checklist of all the videos.

Checklist

 

Unfortunately I was let down again by Jack, as Sandy & Andrea had to do his work of contacting the other groups. I'm yet to find out if Mekalia will turn up to the recording day.

I delegated the work with the team, I did this via email, text message, phone call/skype and our main channel of communication: Facebook. The reason I had to do this was because some members of the group aren't on Facebook, also for those that are I used another device to talk to them privately about their work so they would understand.

Delegation - Co-ordinating

I broke down what work needs doing and by who to the group, so that the group understood what needed to be done. This was done via our channel of communication, Facebook.

Broke down

I enquired about the booking to our main tutor Veronika, and I sent on the message to my team so they were made aware of the equipment and length of booking we had.

Equipment

Neural Interface Suit

As well as Katie's script we negotiated a title screen for our project. This would be a loading screen for the VR Communications that will work as an opener to our project. I further expanded this idea to incorporate Sci-Fi research.

My idea expanding this was to make science fiction references in both games, comics TV and Film.


All four of us would talk, and as we talk a team speech would pop up (gaming) with our username and a speech symbol. We would also make references, for example Fallout 3. In Fallout 3 to go in to a simulation you must wear something called: "A Neural Interface Suit".

Other references would be about difficult settings and control pods, which appear in all sorts of media like American Dad, Johnny Bravo and so on.

Control pod

Blog Entry 10 - Prototypes

12th April – Circuit currents looping prototype

12th April – Final template with code and binary added

13th April – database models

17 April at 02:03 – BSOD

26 April at 04:03 – Pop-up box

Blog Entry 9 - Easter Break Progress

Over the Easter break my work for the group was to produce prototype's and templates for the videos.

I have animated the background of my dark computer circuitry room design, so that electric currents go through the circuits in the background. I have further animated this with "DigiFace" typography that is also animated, this animation is online gaming based settings that are constantly changing in the background subtly. The last animation I made was hexadecimal binary looping in the center of the video.

I have now made my static UI design fully animated. This was done using CS5.5 Flash. It took me roughly 6 hours in total to animate everything perfectly. I exported the flash video as a .mov file.

I imported the file in to CS5 After Effects, and worked on adding the photoshopped filters over the top of the animated background.

This now means I have a finished template that will easily compensate the green screen recordings in between the animations and filters.


While I have been doing this Katie was working on script ideas, Sandy was working on the soundscape we previously discussed and the three of us and Andrea were all getting on to the other groups to get information and content.

I was contacting my group regularly over the Easter period, keeping them informed of my progress and checking up on them, and enquiring if they needed any help.

Blog Entry 8 - Concept defined

Background

Cyborgs

Cyborgs by definition are extensions of someone physically. For example glasses enhance people’s vision, and are therefore classed as an extension of the eyes. So people who wear glasses, by definition can be classed as cyborgs.

tjcooper91

Avatars

Avatars can be classed in the same area, as avatars express our personalities. An example of an avatar would be: the “XBOX 360 Live Avatar”. Social avatars are extensions of our essence of who we are and how we express ourselves. As an example my XBOX 360 personal avatar is designed to look like me with the same hair and a beard. Also because I’m a geek and my favourite superhero is “Batman”, my avatar is also wearing a Batman costume. This is an extension of my personality.

Usernames

Usernames relate to the same principle as avatars. It is a text representation of how we identify ourselves. So for the avatars I have asked my group for their own personalised user ID. Usernames normally consist of something relating to that person: i.e. a name, nickname, a date (DOB) or something personal. For example: my username for everything is: tjcooper91. Just by googling that user ID you can find most of my work, I use this as it is the first two initials of my name then my last name, the 91 is the year I was born.

Virtual Societies

Virtual societies are increasingly growing with advancements in Facebook and online gaming. Digitally native people will grow up to be more active in a virtual society than the physical one. Because of this we came up with the idea of using science fiction virtual realities combined with our concept of avatars.

Plan and Concept

We originally planned on having this as a projection of us discussing the exhibition and bantering amongst ourselves and the watching audience. The idea and concept got great feedback from our tutors in the presentation; from this they offered us a greater challenge. We were then asked to orchestrate the exhibition with our idea and concept.

So our idea evolved in to bringing all of the 16 final pieces together around our idea. This is done by introducing the exhibition and having us act out as though directly in front of an audience, and acting like a tour guide to all the work.

Our group introductions will be played around the other groups’ physical or digital work. In our own way we explain what there final work is.

As well as being a tour guide we are a stand alone piece. This is emphasised with bantering comments and conversations with the avatars (this will be played at random in between the work). This also pulls us away from being direct guides to the exhibition and makes our piece a stand alone article as well.

Blog Entry 7 - Last group tutorial before easter

I came up with the concept of having three random introductions for the exhibition, three random introductions for the groups, three different transitions and about eight idle chatter or banter videos. This will be picked at random on a flash program when introducing the work etc.

This was discussed with our tutors, as well as confirming the advanced booking of the green screen studio.

For this tutorial, only the four of us turned up: Me, Sandy, Andrea & Katie. We all discussed our propositions and ideas. As the four of us would be acting as the avatars.

Easter was coming at the end of the week so we delegated the work.

My individual work was to produce visuals, video prototypes and work on the transitions.

Blog Entry 6 - The Presentation

The day of the presentation, only Me, Andrea & Katie turned up. Sandy had a legitimate reason as to why he couldn't come in, however the other two members didn't even bother explaining, just ignored texts and never turned up.

Me, Andrea & Katie started off by going to the pub and organised our presentation, we planned who would say what and discussed our project further, so we were all clear on what to present.

After this we went on to a computer room to finish the last few slides. Then before the presentation we took it upon ourselves to book the green screen room, the sound studio and get ourselves organised.

When organising a schedule and list of work: we still involved Mekalia & Jack, but because of previous disappointments we worked the schedule around work we could easily catch up on or afford to miss.

When we got to the room we were the third group to present. We were all a little nervous because the previous two groups didn't do so well and the classroom was full up.

We got started and emphasised off of the slides, which meant it sounded natural and we were talking directly to the audience and not reading off of slides.

We were explaining our concept idea and how it would work. It all seemed to be going well, then we got to the slide with my UI Design. Our tutors stopped us there... At this point we were panicking, but what seemed to be a dark moment in the presentation turned out to be an unmissable opportunity.

Our tutors were very enthusiastic about our idea and asked us if we would consider orchestrating the entire exhibition. This would mean fusing all the group projects together in our piece. This would be done by acting like virtual tour guides and introducing both the groups and the exhibition.

Our tutor also got us an advanced booking for the film studio.

Blog Entry 5 - Presentation Preparation

I started the preparation off by tweaking parts of our idea ready for presenting, I set up a group meeting and organised the times people could do; to work out a schedule so everyone can contribute.

I turned up late to the meeting so I delegated the work via text message and organised a pick up to collect the work.

Although I was an hour late (because of personal reasons) I was disappointed to find out that next to nothing got done. After further discussion with one of the photographers I discovered the two noncontributing members were messing about and became more of a hindrance than helpful.

When I got there only the idea development and a slide of images was done. Neither of which was asked for in the brief. So I knuckled down on my own and tidied up the three slides the photographers done and started working on it.

After re-designing and tidying up what was already there I produced an outline for the presentation of what was specified on the brief. I worked on my own on the presentation for a couple of hours then met up with Katie.

Me and Katie worked together to get most of the presentation done. We spent a couple of hours working on it to get most of it done.

I contacted the entire group and told them what was left as well as what me and Katie done. Then discussed the presentation with them and delegated the work evenly between them.

From this only Sandy & Andrea contributed, so I worked on it more to get the majority finished.

The main thing being the User-Interface Diagrams:

UI Design - By Toby Cooper

Projection UI Design - By Toby Cooper

In the end two things were left to do as a group before the presentation itself.

Blog Entry 4 – Session 2

A new member has joined our group: Sahand Jalali. I caught him up on Facebook, added him to the group and exchanged contact details. He is a music student who was moved to our group to replace Theron UDennis - who has a poor attendance record.

I was thinking about my groups project before the session. Because I'd be the one to do the code work etc. I started thinking about how doable the piece was. Especially in the amount of time we have.

It wasn't doable to research how to make a program appear differently on two terminals/projection in the space of time we have. Neither would it be doable to test this before the exhibition and having two work spaces at the exhibition would never be accepted.

Not only that but the idea didn't really fit the criteria. So before class I tweaked the concept around avatars. This is because they are extensions of our personalities classing them as virtual forms of cyborgism. I also thought about portraying them in a virtual reality to add a sci-fi touch to it.

Avatar - Mr. House - Fallout New Vegas

When we got to class two of the photographers didn't show up, which at this stage makes the group "Forming" hard and makes them unaware of group progress. 

I pitched the idea change to the group that had shown up: Katie, Andrea & Sandy. They agreed it needed changing. Katie suggested making it just a video showreel that could be interactive via remote control. 

We decided to go with mine and Katies idea, Sandy pitched the idea of making it so we communicate with the audience by saying things like "Oi pay attention".

I came up with a visual concept of making it a computery looking room that is constantly glitchy, Andrea & Sandy were discussing how the ambience, music and sound effects should sound. I suggested mood music and for the ambience computery sounds, drips, dark and dramatic.

As a group we came up with this concept:

• An Interactive projection that is manipulated by us via remote control. 
• The format is video, that will be recorded on a green screen. 
• By keying out the green screen we will photoshop computery designs. 
• At all times there will be a male and female, who will have idle chatter. 
• Mood music will be played while the characters talk, emphasising the moods: amorous, hostility, comical, happy, embarassed etc. 
• "The Virtual Reality Comm." is glitchy and the avatars often glitch off the screen and are replaced with another one. 
• The avatars communicate with the real world: the exhibition audience, this is the main concept of the "Virtual Reality Comm." 
• There will be glitchy transitions and effects.

 

I came up with a couple ideas for the video:

Have computer stuff pop up every now and then, like:

- With the glitches, a "connection lost..." screen or "Stream ended"

- background protocals appear, in the back drop, which does not distract too much from whats happening (making it look more "techy")

After our session we had to plan for the presentation that was coming up the following week. So I negotiated a day with my team and set up the event on Facebook for those who didn't attend.

The team roles we will negotiate Wednesday - I'll be in the whole time so I'll co-ordinate everything fairly, for those joining and leaving at different times.

Blog Entry 3 - First Idea

Original Concept

We came up with the concept of User controlled avatars. The original idea was to have two groups of people (Group A & B); there would also be a room and a terminal controlled in another room. 

Group A would be placed inside the room and Group B would be on the terminal. The terminal controls what is happening in the room, this includes interactivity with the main feature being an avatar that banters & chats with Group A.

Idea concept similar to the Wizard of Oz

The avatar would be controlled from the terminal - the avatar can record 'String' memory and say the name of people in the room, if the person controlling the avatar was to write it in to the program. This will be quoted via dynamic loading with a speech bubble and text to speech software.

As well as the avatar, background visuals, eary music and sound effects are also being controlled on this terminal. In the room where this is all taking place, there is a webcam that records what is going on, the user on the terminal can see and hear the reaction of Group A from Group B's manipulation to the room.

The idea of this was that everyone had a different outcome within the room and at the terminal. Making each experience unique. 

Blog Entry 2 - First session & Group Forming

The first session started by getting in our groups and sitting through a lecture about Cyborgs. I have had a similar lesson before in Media Histories and Cultures so I understood and followed this lecture easily.

After this we were told to sit in our groups, start exchanging details and brainstorming ideas.

Group Forming
In "Tuckman"s group development model he describes the first stage of group development to be the "Forming Stage".

From previous group experience I found this is the most important stage in group development. I wrote a case study about my last group and how we didn't develop properly in the early stages. So I made sure I didn't make the same mistakes as I did in my previous project as co-ordinator, remembering fully my last recommendations and the group roles, development & styles theories.


Forming defined
The forming stage is the most important stage. Because it is the stage where the team gets to know one another and exchange contact details. 

In this stage each member is gathering information and impressions of the other members. Conflict is avoided in this stage because of a sense of belonging. 


Mature team members who have had experience and understand the concept of the Tuckman's Group Development model: step up to try and get the group focused on routines and team organisation and monitor behaviour at an early stage.

There is a sense of independence at this stage as some members are still motivated but often pull away and work independently, becoming uninformed of the issues and objectives.

Blog Entry 1 - Setting up the Facebook page

The project started before our first session, our tutor posted up the groups on the "Studynet".

I downloaded the group list and found out what group I was in: Group 12.

Because this was the first time Interactive Media & Screen Cultures congregated with Photographers and Music. I thought it'd be a good idea to break the ice by getting everyone in a group before the meeting. I had a search around on Facebook but only managed to find one of my future group members. I contacted her and then set up a group putting myself, my friend from Screen Cultures & the Photographer I made contact with.

This helped when it came to the first tutorial because it made making contact and even recognising each other easier.