FMP - Production Schedule

For my FMP I made a production schedule in order to keep up to date with my work and layout everything I need to do to keep up with my work:

Date:	20th-24th March		27th-31st March	3rd-7th April	HALF TERM	24th-28th April	1st-5th May
Proposed Tasks:	Magazine Plan	Test shoots	Shoot photos for magazine	Create magazine pages in photoshop		Finalise Magazine using InDesign	Edit Advertisement
	Storyboard	Research	Contact creators	Interview Creators		Re-shoot advert if needed	Reflect on project/feedback
	Moodboard	Shot list	Prepare for advert shoot	Shoot Advert		Finalize Brief	Print magazine
	Research	Styles	Film vlog	Film vlog		Film the next parts of the vlog	Edit the vlog
Stage of Production:	PRE PRODUCTION		PRODUCTION				POST PRODUCTION

In this schedule I'm using a RAG rule to show my progress, so as time goes on I will change the cell colour to amber and green accordingly. Here's a link to the spreadsheet which I will update regularly.

It's split up into 3 stages of production at the bottom, and the dates I have to complete them at the top. I think that this will help me be more organised as I go through this FMP project.

Creating a Brand/Logo

In Steve's lesson we had to create our own brand/logo in our sketchbooks and using the computers. We were originally told to create a mindmap showing what we're passionate about, what makes us unique, and what our strengths are. Then we had to create a short 6 word sentence describing what we do, to help us identify ourselves as a brand. 

Next we started drawing. We first started by creating a logo without taking the pen off the paper. I came up with some simple logos using my initials, and a visual logo featuring someone looking through a camera. I settled on the visual one because it looked better than initials in my opinion and stood out as a logo. 

After this we moved onto the computers and had to create a logo using Adobe Illustrator only using the Helvetica type family. I played around with strokes and effects and in the end came up with this logo which I thought looked impressive. I chose primary colours because they're bold and stand out.

Lastly we moved back to the sketchbooks and had to make a logo which had no text. I decided on the idea of a silhouette in front of a computer to connote post production and design work, then tried to further evaluate my idea and created a logo with a minimalistic figure in front of a camera, whose head acted as the camera lens.

Overall I thought that this task was helpful in me developing my drawing skills and presenting myself as a brand or company.

FMP - Mindmap & Initial Ideas

This week we were given the brief for our FMP's. I decided to do a mix of both publishing and moving image, by making a magazine and promotional video to go with it. This is a mindmap I made while thinking out ideas for what this magazine could be based on:

From the middle bubble I branched out into four different magazine themes - Fashion, Youth, Skateboarding & a magazine/lookbook for a brand.

For the theme of fashion I started to think out locations, brands and models. I chose to focus on streetwear brands like supreme, palace, bronze56k, converse etc. because these are the brands which I'm most interested in and know the most about. I also asked myself where I want to shoot my photos and went for urban locations such as Bristol and Bath, as well as countryside heavy rural area's where I could capture nice light and blue skies. I think these two locations contrast against each other and will look good together. Lastly I had the task of picking models. I decided that I wanted people who look different and/or interesting, in order to stand out. I will research further into this.
The theme of skateboarding was very appealing to me as well as it's something I'm very passionate about. From this theme I wanted it to have variety, because there's lots of skateboard magazines out already so mine would have to be different in order to stand out. I also wanted it to feature interviews with skateboarders from the local area and focus on skate culture. To do this I plan to research via platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to find individuals. The magazine would be fairly photo heavy so I jotted down some ideas of cameras I could use (digital/35mm film) and different editing techniques.
I chose not to create a clothing brand and do a magazine around that however, because I had already done a very similar project to this in previous publishing lessons and wanted to do something different. Also with this idea I'd be fairly limited in what I could write about and present in a magazine, and it would take a lot of time.

I found that it would be quite hard to make a full magazine just focused on a specific theme. Due to this I started leaning towards the theme of 'youth' because through this I would be able to incorporate all of the themes into one magazine. After making this decision, I made another mind map which focused on the youth theme and what I need to do in my magazine.

I decided that it should focus on youth culture, and contain pieces focusing on music, skating, fashion and youth. I came up with these four things because I asked myself what interests me. In this mindmap I also listed the technicalities of the magazine which I need to decide. In the end I chose to make a 210mm x 210mm magazine, in full colour which is 30 pages long (including the cover). The pages will be 170gsm and the cover 300gsm.
In pre production I will have to create a moodboard, plan of pages, contact people and create a storyboard and shot list for the advert. I will also do lots of research in this pre production period.

Reflection - Interactive

For the past term with Steve we have been learning all about animation and how to use the program 'Adobe Animate'. Over these lessons I have learnt a lot about the program which I had little knowledge on before, and created many digital animations. We started by learning the basics of the program and understanding what it does for the first few lessons, then advanced onto learning it's specific tools and features. Since I started I feel like I have gained a lot of knowledge about digital animation and Adobe Animate. There's some things which I can still improve on like making longer animations or learning even more of the programs functions such as the bone tool, however I'm confident in making small animations using the variety of features I've already learnt.

One more thing which I learnt was how to incorporate my animations together into an interactive product using Adobe Muse, giving it the ability to become a functioning website or app. This is useful to know and produces a professional looking product.

This is the first animation I made in our interactive lessons
when messing around with the program. As you can see
I had some basic knowledge of the program prior to teaching.
It's fairly clunky and could be improved by adding more detail
or making the movements more realistic.

This is an animation I made in Animate to experiment with
motion tweens. Again it works but could have more detail.

This is an animation I made frame by frame to experiment with
the technique. It took a fairly long time to do however I was
pleased with the rough style result.

I made this animation experimenting with shape tweens, something
I had no idea how to use before these lessons. It was easy to do
and created a unique looking animation.

I created this scene using symbols to duplicate the penguins as
opposed to drawing them out repeatedly. This was a new skill
that I learnt.

This is a reference sheet I created for my character 'The Blob'. I learnt how to
do this in Steve's lessons and it turned out very helpful for when I came to
make animations for this character.

This is an animation I made of the Blob
eating for the final interactive product
I made. It's smooth and is a big
improvement from the first animation
I made. It could be improved however
by making it a little slower.

Course Reflection

I created this prezi about the course reflecting on what I had learnt so far and what I found good and bad. I found that I prefer the more hands on practical tasks such as shooting and editing films & photos, as well as creating magazines and designing things. I also found projects focusing on hobbies or things i'm interested in the most enjoyable, such as the publishing task which focused on fashion and photography.

For my FMP I'd like to make a full magazine or lookbook, and a promotional video for it. I've chosen to do this because I'd like to do moving image next year and I enjoy fashion and photography, so this way I can incorporate both into my FMP.

Production Cycle
Pre-Production
Create a brand
Research magazines
Research fashion
Research photography techniques
Plan Magazine (Layout, composition)
Plan Promotional Video (Storyboard)

Production
Shoot photos for magazine, shoot video for promotional piece

Post Production
Edit promotional video
Edit together magazine
Print magazine
Promote on social media

Experimentation Exercise #1

In small groups we had to make a bridge using only resources that we were given which could hold as much weight as possible. We were given 2 paper cups, 30 pieces of spaghetti, a small pot of play-doh, string and 50cm of masking tape.

Our group's bridge was the strongest, holding a total of 5 battery packs. I think what we did well was make the main bridge reinforced. We started with just a row of spaghetti and then added masking tape and string to hold it together. After this we added play-doh to act as cement which really helped our bridge remain structurally strong.

We also added a middle pillar to the bridge using spaghetti which stopped it from bending so much and gave it another area of support.

If we were to do this again I would do more research before making the bridge and take more thought into deciding the best function for each resource we were given.

Royal Baby Task