Making the Blob Wait

After we'd drafted the character, we had to animate it... doing nothing. I made the stage the resolution of an iPhone 6 screen (1080 x 1920) then grabbed the sketch of my character front on from the model sheet and converted it into a symbol. Then I made it get slightly bigger and then return to its original state using motion tweens. This gave the illusion of it breathing. To improve, this animation, I'd like to make the character blink at random.

Character Draft

In lesson we had to create a character to later animate. I kept it fairly simple and made this blob. It changes colour when feeling different emotions (red=angry, green=envy, blue=sad etc.). I first drew him as a doodle (pictured below) when I got sidetracked from trying to draw a human.

I liked the look of it so developed it into a character, and drew it from many different angles on this model sheet, with some different expressions and the colours that go with them.

Shape Tweens

To create a shape tween I drew my initials with the brush tool, then went 10 frames ahead and drew my initials in a wavy style. Inbetween these two frames (frame 5) I clicked and selected 'Create Shape Tween'. This was the end result:

Motion Tweens

For this task we had to use motion tweens. I made an animation of 2 cars racing. Motion tweens are a simple way of animating an object which is fairly effortless compared to frame by frame animation. To do it, I drew a car and duplicated it to make a second in a different colour, then converted them both to symbols. Then, in the timeline I right-clicked the frame with the car on and chose "Create Motion Tween", then I moved the car to the finishing point. I did this for the other car and drew a background. Lastly, I double clicked on the motion tween in the timeline and added 'ease' so that the cars sped up smoothly.

Evaluation - FlipDeck

This is a picture of the final prototype for the board game 'FlipDeck', that me and my group decided to make after getting the brief. Our task was to design and produce a prototype for an original board game/reworking of an original title. There were guidelines for the product and we managed to overcome all of these. The idea for FlipDeck came about because me and Max are both skaters. We downscaled a game we play on our skateboards to a small board game scale. After coming up with the initial idea, we did some research to check there were no similar games on the market (online and in shops), then tweaked the game so it fitted the brief and was playable. With a group of four, we were able to get the prototype created fairly quickly, and we didn't come into any problems with technicalities.

Overall I would rate the product a success, which could work as a real game on the market. One thing that it could improve on however was the skill level it takes to play the game, making it hard to play for a wide audience range. To improve this we could add a dice with much easier tricks. If we had more time to respond to the brief we would have sourced and created proper dice as opposed to paper ones, and would have put more effort into the rule book. Nevertheless, I think this was an effective idea which worked well as a board game.

Production

For this project, I didn't need to record any wild tracks separately to add in to my project, as the report would just contain the reporters speech and idents created digitally.

I didn't need much administration for this project. All I had to record was 3 different news stories and an introduction and outro. I planned this by writing a script that could be read off.

When I composited the report in Premiere to take out the parts I didn't need and add idents, I made sure that the audio levels were suitable throughout by checking the Master Audio Levels. I adjusted the sound of all my clips so that they were around -6dB at all times, so no clipping occured.

Here's a screenshot of my timeline:

I also made album art for this news report so that at first glance the listener knows what the thing they've downloaded is. It also makes the report more professional.

Evaluation

Overall I think that this project went fairly well and was quite easy. The end product ended up sounding professional and is an effective broadcast which communicates short news pieces well with the listener. One thing which I could've improved on is equipment. I used a zoom h4n microphone to record the broadcast but I could've used an additional external mic connected to the Zoom for clearer speech recording. This would've been the most fitting setup for a news report.

Something which worked well was the script which made the report sound realistic and professional. This is because in my research I found examples of news reports and took note of how the reporters welcome in the audience and the language they use. 

Another thing which I could've improved is the ident, as it is very simple. I could've made it longer or added drums or something similar, similar to the idents I found when researching for this project. I made it using Logic Pro X (screenshot below). 

As you can see from this screenshot, the ident is only made from a simple melody and two chords. If I do this again I could try and use more complex chords or additional instruments.

In conclusion, I found this project fairly easy, however I should have spent more time planning the technical side so that I could have used the most effective equipment and more time making the ident.

Designing my Brief

For this media product, I will be making a factual radio broadcast (non-fiction) which quickly reports on a few news stories. There will be one reporter who communicates with the audience. It will begin and end with a musical ident made with Logic Pro X and will be recorded using a Zoom H4N microphone. The musical ident will help listeners identify that this piece of audio is a news broadcast. I will composite the broadcast together in Adobe Premiere and upload it to soundcloud.

Script

This is Bath College news with Aiden May.

An ancient city has been unearthed by archeologists in Egypt. It lies by the River Nile, and experts say that the city dates back more than 5,000 years and contains houses, tools, pottery and huge graves.

It is believed that this location was home to important officials and tomb builders who may have been involved in the construction of royal graves in the nearby sacred city of Abydos.

St Gregory's school in Bath was forced to cancel all of its after school clubs on Wednesday October 12th after the a threat was made on social media. Police were forced to step up patrols at the school, as the threat received was from a 'killer clown'. The killer clown craze began in the United States, but sightings of clowns holding fake weapons and airguns have been reported in the UK - most recently in Keynsham near Bath.

Headteacher Ann Cusack issued a letter to all parents stating that they took the report seriously and followed council safeguarding guidelines. The email sent stated that 'all students would be sent straight home after school and all after school clubs and fixtures were cancelled.'

Police have warned clown pranksters they are risking a criminal record.

Lastly, three young suspected joyriders from Bath have been charged with vehicle crime offences after a stolen Porsche was found in a hedge in West Harptree. Police were alerted at 3.15am on Friday the 18th November that a Porsche 911 had collided with a hedge in Harptree Hill, 15 miles from Bath. The three suspects were later arrested at 5.45am on the A368 in Bishop Sutton.

This has been Bath College news with Aiden May, thank you for listening.