Identifying and Analysing current employment opportunities

Working in the media industry in a small company or as a freelancer requires you to know how to work with clients. There are many methods small businesses use to get a brief from a client. You need to ask a lot of questions. Learn about their company, ask what it is about. You want to know what they want to achieve and what they want you to produce and for what target audience. Learn what they like, what already exists and what their budget it. Gather any and all information on what they really like and want from the design, for example if they want you to make a website for them you must know what design the client wants, because ultimately it comes down to their final opinion. The more information the company gets out of the client, the better the project brief will be.

Clients will have different demands depending on the product they are looking for and standards they expect, their standards change depending on how established the company is, how big the product is and what kind of work that has been done for them in the past.

Here are two briefs found online:

Brief 1:http://mekel.net/folio/buildersreg/content/res_int_clientbrief.html

Brief 2:http://pitchpen.com/faq/10049/10052/13011

These are both project briefs for construction. The differences between the two are as follows:

The layout for each of these briefs is completely different. Brief 1 uses a much simpler approach, in an order of mostly tick boxes and neat lists; it shows everything to expect from the project in a nice order. The layout is easy to read and works more like a 'tick list' of notes on what the project will need and who/what they are working with. It is much more like a layout of how they are going to complete the task, brief 2 is more like what they are going to complete the task.

The second brief is more like a wall of text with headers that are hard to distinguish from the rest of the text. Brief 2 does seem to have a lot more in-depth detail about the final result of the project and what they plan to do after the project is completed. The main difference between the two is how they lay out their information. Brief 1 is based around lists, diagrams and tick boxes; brief 2 is mostly about showing all the information in sub-headings. The rewards vary, this depends on how big the project is and what client the producer is working for.

September again! Back to work and taking requests!

Back into College on the second year of the Interactive media course, this year we are getting a near lecturer or two to take us through 3D design and a lot of game design related units. I am designing my own 'drag and drop' game and will be partaking in many projects across the year.

If anyone wants me to figure out something for them or go into more detail about how I have done something in the past just ask in the comments! I will be checking regularly.

Also if anyone want me to make something like a wallpaper I am willing to make a wallpaper for anyone.

The One True Wey Magazine project analysis

 

This project was about creating a magazine about Weymouth using our own images we took ourselves while out in Weymouth. We were tasked with thinking up a theme and creating a magazine to be published on the Issuu website. With the use of photography, Photoshop editing and InDesign I created my own magazine.

Thought process

                When thinking of a unique ‘theme’ of Weymouth I thought about all the things people from outside Weymouth usually don’t see, like destroyed structure, littering and mess everywhere, and also the hidden gems of Weymouth that people usually miss out. When people think of Weymouth they think of the sunny beaches, the ice creams and the postcards. Nobody thinks ‘what is really in Weymouth?’ they only see what the council want them to see which is an expensive hotel room overlooking the popular Weymouth beach.

                This lead me to go into the back streets of Weymouth and find the ‘behind the scenes’ that tourists never see. I also took a look into Weymouth’s nightlife and the nature reserve and the beauty it has to offer, a beauty that most people tend to miss during their holiday.

 

The edit

                I took photographs all around the back streets of Weymouth, including the graffiti and destruction and decay in and around Weymouth town center. I also photographed some arcades and a the lasers on the seafront at night to show how Weymouth lights up at night as well as the Radipole lake wildlife preserve during the day.

                The magazine is eight pages long, the first being the cover. I wanted to have the magazine cut into ‘sections’. The first two pages being what the magazine will show and the night life of Weymouth, the next two being the wildlife preserve, then the next two showing the decay of Weymouth and finally the last page summarizing what the magazine shows. I made the last four pages ‘double pages’, one image covering the background for the two pages on the same topic with the images on the same topic over the front of it.

                Each page is made in the resolution of 4487 x 6826 at 300 ppi (pixels per inch) in Photoshop then put onto InDesign as TIF images.

 

Post production

                With a lot of the pictures I changed the contrast and colouring to fit the mood I was trying to convey, for example when looking at the beauty of the wildlife preserve and the birds I made the images brighter with a ‘warm’ orange filter over them. I did the complete opposite for the images showing the decay of Weymouth, making them darker and gloomier by turning down the contrast and brightness. A simple shadowing or colour change can change the mood of the page drastically.

                I chose to keep the text brief and descriptive in the magazine to keep interest and to make sure I didn’t repeat myself over several topics. I had a title for each page and double page so readers would not get confused at sudden changes in the topic, for example when the magazine is covering the nature reserve and then goes onto the dirt and decay of Weymouth.

                I chose to use a smart font that wasn’t silly or hard to read because personally I have never seen a magazine with a hard to read font. I made sure to keep the text symmetrical to the images or made in the same layout to the images. The font colour is made to stand out from the background depending on the page with added strokes and outer glows around the text to make it readable. The colour of the text goes hand in hand with the theme of the page, the main titles mainly being a bright blue to stand out from the rest of the text.

Ethical and legal considerations

                When taking photos in Weymouth I made sure to not invade on anyone’s privacy and/or property, like taking pictures of people without their permission or going into somebody’s garden. I did not claim any of the property I took photos of as my own. The software I used (adobe software) to edit the photos and pages were licensed at home and at the college. As far as ethical issues go, I feel I did not breach any limitations; I have kept confidentiality and have not represented anyone individually or insulted a group of people like a race or religion.

Reflection

                Through this project I have learnt a lot about photography, image editing, using adobe software, creating magazines and how to upload good quality images online.

                While taking photos I learnt exactly how to use depth of field, shutter speed and what modes DSLR cameras use. Through this project I have gained skills in taking more than ‘point and click’ photos and figuring out how to make a photo interesting and make people study more of the image. Even when I did not make the image interesting enough I still learnt how to edit them effectively. I really enjoyed using the focus on the camera to capture the key part of the image like a sing post in the wildlife reserve in the Radipole area and have the rest of the natural pathway fade of into the distance into a nice blur.

In Photoshop I edited a lot of my images to fit the topic and feel of the page more, for example when I was trying to get a nice picture of some of the wildlife in the nature reserve but unfortunately it was not a sunny day so to give a more warm and positive image of the lake and wildlife I added an orange filter and made the images brighter to ‘warm up’ the page and make it fit what I was originally trying to point out. This also goes for the grimier and messy parts of Weymouth where I took almost all the colour and contrast out of the images of destruction and structure damage in Weymouth because that topic is not ‘warm’ it is cold and disturbing. The feel of a page can be controlled by the colour of the text and images and how they are edited. 

Another effect I used was ‘tilt shift’, a tool I used to add blur to images I liked but did not have the desired effects. For example I had a pathway with a lot of litter on the floor but there was no blur, the houses and close up pathway took the attention away from the litter so I added the tilt shift blur which I changed to make the background and close up floor out of focus and the pathway with all the dirt and litter in focus with all the attention that the image was originally take for.

I made all the pages in Photoshop as PNG images but after uploading the magazine PDF to the website Issuu I saw the images were in really low quality so I took that magazine down and replaced it with a new PDF where each page was saved as a TIF image file. This is how I learnt how to make and upload high quality images and magazines to online websites.

 

                I believe the project was a success because the images do reflect what I was trying to say about Weymouth; What we normally don’t see or pay attention to in our everyday lives, what we find obscure.  I captured the ‘behind the scenes or Weymouth’, the hidden beauty and decay we don’t pay attention to and what Weymouth does not want ‘outsiders’ to see. I captured these images then edited and represented them in a way that conveys what I was trying to say about Weymouth.

                When I think what I could have improved I think of the layout of my images, I feel I wasn’t creative enough with the positioning and I should have edited some of the images more. I also think I could have re visited some of the locations I was covering in different weather, the day I went through the nature reserve it was very misty which rendered a lot of my images useless I wanted to use and the water was bleak. Overall I could have improved how I displayed my photos but I think I conveyed my idea well.

 

Actionscript 3 Button

This code is for a button in actionscript 3 that follows a score. When the score is greater than 10 it will loop posting 'true'.


import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.events.Event;

var score = 0;
square.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,pressed);

function pressed(e:MouseEvent)
{
score +=  1;
trace(score);
}

stage.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,loop);

function loop(e:Event)
{

if (score>10)
{

trace('true');
}

}

Pictures of Weymouth

Digital communication

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/adsl/

http://www.broadband-guide.org.uk/what-is-broadband.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Message_Service#Technical_details

http://cellphones.about.com/od/phoneglossary/g/mmspicturemessaging.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband#In_telecommunication

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL

http://www.w3schools.com/tcpip/tcpip_intro.asp

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_Bluetooth_work

The principles of interactive authoring

BTEC Subsidiary Diploma in Interactive Media 11/12 - Principles of Interactive Authoring

Authoring software, also known as authorware is software that allows users to write hypertext or multimedia applications and make a final application by merely linking together objects such as text, images or a song. This can be done by defining the objects purpose and how it relates to other objects and by sequencing them in the appropriate order, authors using authoring tools can produce incredibly useful and good looking applications with more ease than using programming software would.

            When it comes to differentiating authoring and programming software, no clear distinction is immediately visible. However when looked at authoring software is much easier to use, especially for less technically advanced users. They require less technical knowledge to master and are used exclusively for applications that present a mixture of textual, graphical and audio data whereas programming software can be used to program mechanical devices and change and create existing software and hardware.

            The key difference between authoring software and programming languages like ‘C’ is authoring involves the assembly and bringing together of Multimedia with possibly high level graphical interface design and some high level scripting.

 

When it comes to ‘high level’ and ‘low level’ software those who are new to the terminology will think that high level means that you must be ‘highly advanced’ in programming to use it. It actually refers to how ‘close’ the software is to the actual computer and hardware in the sense that the lowest language is binary which is all 1s and 0s. Right above binary coding is Assembly coding, both of which can only be used by the most advanced users as they are so complicated, the next level is C, the coding language that most people can actually read and is the most used by programmers, as well as the language Java. Authoring software in this sense is rather high and could be described as ‘basic’.

This brings attention to GLBasic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It is authoring software used to create games, databases and anything that does not require an extensive library and can get quite complicated at times but it is still good software for beginners as key words and commands are already recognised in the code and there are easy to use ways of writing out code that is easy to master. It is essentially an easy version of the coding language ‘C’. Obviously GLBasic is limited as to what it can do as it is high level software.

 

 

There is a lot of authoring software to choose, from the most basic and easiest to use to software that takes a little longer to master:

·         Powerpoint

·         Prezi

·         Director

·         Snap!Empower

·         edgeLib

·         Flash

·         GLBasic

 

Powerpoint and Prezi are by far the easiest to learn and master. They are both used for presentations, Prezi being the newest way of doing so with interesting animations and a newer feel with the way it zooms in and out and twists and turns that looks complex but in fact is quite easy to make. With both Powerpoint and word you can easily drag and drop, copy and paste any and all images into your work. Prezi has the ability to zoom in and out of the pallet that contains the artwork and text with many animations to choose from that are already part of the program.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A prezi presentation zoomed out to reveal more information and artwork

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The same Prezi presentation zoomed out further ready to zoom in on key points in the presentation to then be discussed by the person presenting it to the audience.

 

Powerpoint works in a similar manner for the same purpose but instead of working as one big image it works in slides to either cut to or animate through the different slides containing different information and images like a controlled slideshow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can create complex presentations with Powerpoint and even create complex point and click games through extensive authoring and editing with skill.

This kind of authoring is used by people who want to demonstrate and present their ideas or creations to others and allows users to easily put their minds onto a canvas for others to explore.

 

Moving onto more complex authoring software is Adobe Director and Snap!Empower. Adobe director is and expensive piece of software that allows authors to create and publish interactive games and eLearning courses for the web, iOS devices, Mac and Windows desktops, DVDs, and CDs. With Adobe director users can integrate virtually any major file format, including FLV, swf and native 3D content. This requires some skill to use but through using the software users can master it and create good applications.

In comparison to authoring software such as Director and Flash, Snap!Empower is extremely basic, easy to use and prides itself in the fact absolutely no experience in flash or design is needed to use it. There are hundreds of pre-set designs, images and flash animations available for users to simply drag and drop into the design area, which can then be altered and customized using simple tools. This is very high level authoring software.

 

           

          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 Snap!Empower may be seen as being too basic. More advanced users who have the knowledge to actually make their own animations may want it to look more unique or they may want their own animation and designs rather than using pre-sets. This can be done with more advanced authoring software and programming.

           

            However easy to use authoring software is, it will always work the same as other authoring software with different purposes. There are those for presentation, creating applications and games or creating websites. They all share the same idea of having code made in the C language being pre set into the software for easy to use coding and editing. Almost all authoring software is created with C. Advanced users with more technological experience and skill in the C language can create the same content authors can with the authoring software.

            Authoring is done with the use of interactive buttons, scores, timelines, slideshows and animations whereas C is used to create from scratch. It also involves the assembly and bringing together of Multimedia with possibly high-level graphical interface design and some high level scripting. Flash is most known for the use of buttons and animations. Many games are created with Flash because of its capabilities to make animations and game mechanics with bone tools, buttons, prompts and in built shapes and a timeline, which makes for a much faster and easier way of creating than programming.

 

            When it comes to choosing authoring or programming it comes down to how experienced the user is. Authoring can severely limit authors to how much they can really do. With lower authoring software such as GLBasic or Flash they can create their own games and go quite advanced but authoring has proven to be far more limited than programming. Programming, especially in C and Java, is much lower meaning it has far less boundaries than authoring software with pre-sets and limits on what the authoring software was designed to allow authors to create.

 

            Less experienced users will use authoring software over programming as there are guides and tutorials on how to use the software built in and code will often complete itself and problems will be shown and somewhat explained to the authors as they work. Authoring takes some getting used to but overall it gets work done much quicker and easier compared to programming.