Evaluation for PPD

Ash Bowles

For this brief I have been asked to produce a presentation in any appropriate format, which showcases the work, I have produced across the year. We where given the choice as to how we wanted to do this, it could have been an animation, or a short film for example, anything that successfully showed what we have produced and how it all ties in with or goals for development. I decided that I wanted to use Powerpoint and make an animated presentation with that. This is because I am very comfortable using this program and there are lots of possibilities for easily animating images, which I have used effectively to present my work. It also allows for easy formatting of pages, and although there are some limitations to the extent of customization available, with appropriate original artwork incorporated it can look professional.
I broke my presentation down into different categories consisting of my blog, reviewing how I started it and the development of posts across the year. The next section looks thoroughly at the work produced across the year, which is showcased in different ways. Some work is shown as simple images of the work, where as for others I have embedded movies and objects into the presentation so my final pieces can be viewed as they were handed in.
I created some original background artwork for the presentation in Photoshop using a method of pattern tiling to create a diagonal modern effect, which runs to the theme of m blog, which uses simple grey colours, and contrasting bright pinks and greens to make headings stand out. I am glad I did this because it means that all the work follows a consistent theme across the year, as far as the design. When I go into next year I plan to change this style overall completely and I will begin doing this with my blog, and carry it across to all other work.
Because I was absent for the initial stated presentation of this work it means I have not seen other class members submissions so can not make comparisons with mine, but had I have spent more time developing my ideas, I would have liked to have created a similar presentation in Flash rather than Powerpoint as it would have meant more interactivity and original work, rather than sing some of the uniform animations in Powerpoint. I think I have use a wide variety though, and the fact I created an original page template means that the layout of all the pages is original, and that adds a professional edge.
Looking through the presentation has made me realise how much work I have actually done across the year, and outlining what we have learnt and when, has highlighted to me all the skills I have picked up, and what can be developed for next year. It has also helped me analysis whether I have had a strong enough direction to specify what area I want to specialise in when It comes to next year.

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PPD

Here is the end of year personal and professional development presentation i did. I included most of the work i did across the year. It would have been better if id of made a more personal animation or short piece to present but from working on the movie i hadnt left myself with enough time. It summrises my work across the year well. I realised after feed back though that it doesnt define what iv learnt about myself this year and where i want to be next year, which in some respects was the point of the exercise. So i will tackle this in some futher blog posts as we begin summer holidays.

CUT Movie.

The main thing end and i wante dot achieve from the movie was the sense of disorientation and confusion. We wanted it to seem like a simple spectation of the focus characters issues which in them selves would provide the horror element. It is not particularly or acutely scary, we felt going down the route of employing the use of fake blood and bad weapons props would be a tired idea and we wanted to do something a bit diffrent.
We drew some influence from movies like The Ring, both the original Japanese version and the American remake. Looking at the fast paced shots used in the video for example as well as the grayscaling and lack of colour to make it look more eerie. The scene where u see the static on the TV is a specific example of this influence.
In addition we got some from Schindlers List. Yet another example of a disturbing movie which does not fall into the crappy splatter category and can be viewed as artwork in its direction. Again the use of colour here is the main influence as the storyline has little resemblence. In the scene where i take an abundance of pills we wanted to try and change the pills to a red overlay colour on top of the grayscale. Ha we have known how to do this we would definatley have done so as it adds that strange element to it.
The First person footage was my idea, i mainly got the inspiration from a game hee rather than a movie. The clever camera work in the 360's horror title Condemed was what got me thinkin we would incorporate it in our movie. Many scenes throughout the gae the main character suffers from visions and at these points proceeds to stumble around as you see his vision blur. I think we have managed these scene very well in particular.

Videodrome: CUT

The second part of the Videodrome brief ask's us to produce a short 2 minute film with a horror theme. The reasoning for this is to submit the work into the CUT horror film contest. I worked with Ed for this brief. Together we storyboarded an idea about a guy who is suffering from a huge case of head blaggage! basically the movie will be shot to provide a sense of confusion as the main character (myself) will throughout appear to have blackouted and come back around unexplainably. The story takes place mainly in my house but there are scenes outside for a journey we went to the local woods for this. We wanted to shoot it in a relativley weird way so tried to improvise some inventive shots as well. Ill post the movie next doing into a bit more detail about it and then also ill post some of the influnences along with the evaluation

Evaluation for CUT Movie

Ash Bowles

For this brief we were asked to produce a horror film in a group. I decided to work with Edward for this project, as across the year we have bonded the most and we both felt it would be a good opportunity for us to work together, and combined our skills. We began storyboarding together and were careful to not be too ambitious with what we could achieve out of the project. We knew most o our filming would be done in simple settings such as my house and the woods nearby so we aimed to create something that was more strange and eerie rather than scary and horrific.
The reason for this is because we directly looked at some key films as research, which followed the same style of filming techniques. One of these examples is the movie The Ring, both the original Japanese version and also the American remake. The main factors we took from this was the use of black and white, and also the choppy editing from scene to scene, which gives the despondent feel to the movie as well as adding some confusion which is very relevant.
Our plot is based around the actor (myself) who is battling with a sort of amnesia that is causing havoc in his life. I find myself waking up in the middle of nowhere, and across the movie this happens in an erratic manor to represent the confusion I am experiencing. We decided to render each scene in black and white as well. The inspiration for this came from atmospheric movies where this has been used, a good example of which is Schindlers List. Also from the same movie we wanted to use a scene where we had colour on one object in our case the pills that I take, as this is used in Schindlers List for one object, a girl’s jacket. Unfortunately we found this to complex to improvise otherwise it would have been a good addition to the movie.
I did find the use if props a difficult thing to do. This is because we did not want to create something which looked tacky and we thought for example using tomato ketchup as blood would just be to obvious, so we tried to keep the use of props to a minimum and when we did use them, we made sure they where stark, and in no way imitation props, for example we used real pills that I really take in one scene to show what is giving me the problems that are causing me to sleep.
If I where to do this project again, I would definitely spend more time storyboarding ideas, I would also try to be as inventive as possible when It comes to thinking of ideas for atmosphere in the movie. I would also look at trying to implement a lot more effects in final cut pro to add some more personalisation.

New Banner

Look at it shine lolz. Picture taken on Roundhay trip, icon done in photoshop (supposed to be me with my phones on, no red hair tho :p)...Prettyzzz

Interactive Media Presentation

With my pc now fixed (woohoo) iv put together a presentation to outline my intentions for our Interactive Media brief. The brief is based on Aesops Fables, so we where given a selection and i choose the 'greed' moral from the 'Chicken and the Golden Eggs'.
My game is called Splish Splash and its about squids that collect oyster pearls as they count as their currency, as their stock market has crashed. I think its suitably ridiculous and i look forward to putting it together in flash. So heres the slides from the presentation

What Iv Been Doing

Just so iv got some stuff to post up while my PC remains useless, i thought id fill in on somethings iv been doing in my spare time and stuff. Recently iv been working for a good friend helping him with his club nights at Club Wire in Leeds town center. One of the nights is called the Soapbox and runs every Sunday morning 4am - 9am haha yep its one hefty after party =] can you hack it?!!? The other night is a monthly blowout after party called Eyes Wired Shut which is on the last Friday Night/Saturday Morning of every month. Both of these nights offer quality music, Soapbox residents include Matt Long (mono_cult) and CTMS (twaddle@myhouse) playing a variety of quality tech minimal house. Eyes Wired Shut like i said before is the ultra bouncy baby of Wire, which iv been going to for ages now, and its soon to celebrate its first birthday next month. Its a mix of Techno/Electro and Jackin House, and believe me on the Wire sound system it sounds pure quality. Residents here are Lee Crowther (strut) and my next door neighbor Eddi Zannetti, believe me when i say these guys can make you bounce. So if you get a chance pop down, you'll love it, and you'll prolly see me there on the till to gode you on in =]

b.t.w. - Check out the EWS Boat Party videos, we did this from 9am on Saturday morning till 1pm in the afternoon. This was awesome you'll see me on the video! =]

Lack of Activity

Yeah basically as soon as i posted outlining all my intentions for the BLOG across the half term i went and broke my pc init. Silly move i know. Am waiting till i get some dosh in so i can go and gets a new processor and get it rock and rolling again, hopefully this will be sometime in the next few days and ill be posting somestoryboards for the zombie movie weve got coming up, and also some supporting posts for the blog evaluation. ARGH wyh i had to go ahead and try and change my mobo i dont know, but hopefully soon ill be back online =]

Nokia Morph

What a quality idea. A great example of the possiblites i was trying to highlight in my previous post. I would also like to mention how this video in particluar highlights that concept work, doesnt always have to be ridiculously over rendered shiny 3D work, nor does the enviroments created to showcase it. I love how simple the animated lady is, but how belivable the video is as well, it makes you want one. This is great blog food.

Gearing Towards..

..the final presentation of our blogs on April 8th, im going to post up a few things over easter that really solidify the focus of this blog as a whole.
Ultimatley its main purpose is personal development through research, work and play. I feel confident i have covered these areas failry evenly, and would say that the main topic throughout the blog up till now, is future technoliges.
One of the main reasons for this is that the 2020 project really grabbed me by the balls and got me thinking about the evaluation of both portable technologies and all currently exsisting things.
It made me realise that aspects of almost every exsisting consumerable can be bettered and improved upon in weirdand wonderful ways, but also practical and user freindly ways as well.
The key is to find simple (or complex) solutions to the limitations and issues with currently exsisting technologies. I remember that the shear option layed out in front of us with the; '2020 technology' brief, boggled my head when i first sat down to think about it, as i could have taken it in any direction. I think the fact i decided to design a 2020 fridge proves that almost anything is possible... i like that.
It meant additionally that i was vastly intrigued about what other people had designed, and what other exsisting concepts where out there that could if put in practise not just how we use certain tools of technology, but also our general liftstyles. A great example of this in the blog is the PS9 post, check back in th blog to see what i mean.
This interest has remianed with me well past the submission date, and any time i stumble upon a new concept or find something on DIGG.com that catches my eye it brings me straight back to thinking in that mind set. I would really like to carry on and begin putting pencil to paper with ideas of my own both now for personal development and next year should the work direction allow it.
Also concept design is something iv been overly kean on way before i began this course, it was my main focus in year 13 sixth-form work when i used Feng Zhu as inspiration to design a floating tank i named 'The Jerry'.
Feng Zhu himself offers a comprehensive guide to go about designing both enviroments and vechiles, using his methiod of practice almost anything can be achieved so im going to look at developing my skills more and more across the summer break and now.
And the blog...well ill continue posting new concept designs and any work i do regardless throughout the rest of the studying year and beyond. This is by no means a final post.. so stay tuned.

Metal Gear Fanboy Exterme

Just for shits and giggles.

Metal Gear Fanboy

when i tried to get into Deviantart, from the advise of Octop.com owner, and one of my best friends Aleks Vujovic, i decided to submit one of my favourite pencil drawings at the time. This was done in 2003, and is an illustration of the main character in Metal Gear Solid, Solid Snake. My time using Deviantart was short lived, and iv never got back into it, so seeing this makes me think i may rejoin and re-experience it.

Gutted

Old School Pencil and Shop work i thourght id put up

Fibres Dirty Little Video

Last friday i was asked to take out a camera and do some filming for one of the coolest bar nights in leeds Black Out. Its hosted at Bar Fibre, and acts as a station for both DJ's playing up and down the city and clubbers alike. A great place to go and charge up before a big event or come back to after one, which is what most of the big names do. So i took my camera and primarily filmed the residents Jamie Fisher and Stephen Dixon who are great to watch perform, and are good friends of my family. The video has been delayed for finish unfortunatley because i had to give the camera back into Leeds Uni, but i shud have it back, and the video finished by late next week. :D
Heres a few piccys.

1500 word Essay

So we got a beasty brief to get an essay cracked out and the suject is both relevant to my previous posts on the blog and futher personal development work. Its on censorship. Here it is

The Role of Censorship
Ash Bowles

4.)With reference to specific examples, and notions of morals and ethics, consider the role of censorship in relation to a specified area of Digital Design.

In order to understand the role of censorship across design, it is necessary to first look at what censorship covers. This consists of restricting any aspect of artwork in relation to a moral standard set by constituencies that determine whether the content of such art work is explicit or inappropriate for the usual audience.

“Let each man exercise the art he knows” Artistophanes 450 BC – 388 BC

Censorship exists in many different art disciplines, in fact it can be witnessed in almost every form of art and design. It tends to be applied when the work in question cross's a line of morality which brings into question the intentions of the work itself and in some instances the artists that create it. A good example of censorship can be found when looking at Graffiti artwork.
Graffiti artwork has evolved and emerged from illegal activity, the act of spray-painting public or private walls first began in America where it was very much f rounded upon by authorities, until law's were past and initiatives created to prevent the artist's from spraying.

“In 1995 Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York set up the Anti-Graffiti Task Force, a multi-agency initiative to combat the perceived problem of graffiti vandals in New York City. This began a crackdown on "quality of life crimes" throughout the city, and one of the largest anti-graffiti campaigns in U.S. History.” Graffiti World. Thames & Hudson.

This is a form of censorship through law, these artists have been completely restricted in the form of there canvas. They have only two options, either break the law and create the artwork, or have permission to do so. It creates a lock down that prevents these artists from expressing their creativity. This may seem like the appropriate thing to do to the constituencies involved in creating the law, but sometimes and especially in this case it can create even more drive for artists to get their work out, even if it does mean breaking the law.
So ultimately, even when censorship is brought in for what is believed to be the best intentions, in can often have the opposite effect and encourage more creativity that can mature to be even more edgy and offensive to the groups involved in preventing it. Graffiti artists in particular in Western societies have had to wrestle with the shackles of law if they are to create their artwork, some even serving jail time for it. The question is whether these steps to keep graffiti out of the public eye is at all necessary, or just overly conservative.
In regards to this argument, its wise to look at the the laws governing other countries across the world. For example in Brazil, many of the walls in central Brazil are deemed legal graffiti walls. (Graphotisim 2007) The government have not made it illegal for these artists to express and create. In other countries where the law sits against these artists in means if they decide to go and spray paint they must be wary of the authorities as to avoid being caught and disciplined accordingly. But in Brazil the artists do not have this worry, they are free to create without worry and so they can relax and take as long as they wont creating work. It means that the quality of work can improve vastly, as there is no time limit, and this itself brings the art to new grounds through freedom of expression. Can governments, and protest groups really insist that preventing this form of culture art maturing to higher standards as it naturally does when left to do so, be a necessity to help protect the public?
And the same argument is true for other forms of art in respect to censorship. I think another great example of where this is heavily present is the video games industry. In fact I do not think there is a more acute example of the issues censorship has on a digital design discipline than in video games. There is a huge controversy over the inclusion of violence and other profanities in video games, and this has been the case since 1976. (Slashdot, A Histroy of Video Game Controversy March 2008) The argument raised is that games which include and more specifically reward acts of profanity, as they would be considered in real life, have a negative impact on the game player, who would not only try and re-enact what they have played, but consider it morally acceptable because it is played out in front of them as such.
"There are some games on sale today that should not be on the shelves. Video games are getting more violent and, particularly now in the run up to Christmas, there is a tendency for parents to buy the games their children want without checking their content It is important to tighten up the regulations and I very much hope this attempt succeeds” Keith Vaz MP

In order to detain the negative press this has resulted in the industry voluntarily began stamping individual games with ratings. This is to warn parents and older gamers alike of the mature content of the games they are playing. In the UK mature games have an age rating exactly the same as films do, however it appears that only games containing forms of profanity have these age ratings, there is no parental guidance or (PG) section to a games shop.
This is an important fact to bare in mind when discussing the role of censorship in the video games industry. It highlights that the system has an obvious flaw to it which can not be discounted. As game play has evolved across all platforms there are themes to its content and the vast majority of games now a days follow a very familiar pattern. Even the most child friendly of games, such as Super Mario, has since it has been introduced focused on the hero Mario, doing his bit against the bad guys to save the princess. A very fairy tale like storyline, but a game that still consists of destroying the computer generated characters that stand in his way while he navigates through each level.
So even this game and others like it (Sonic the Hedgehog, Jax and Daxter etc..) all follow the theme of violence, as inoffensively, or non-violent it may be when it occurs, the basic game play remains the same, as well as the ultimate goal, defeat (destroy, or kill) the big bad guy in the end. The characters in games like this and the way they are presented do a great job of sugar coating this reality, but it remains fact. So the absolute truth to the argument is with so many games, even those directed primarily at children consisting of 'friendly-violence' if it can be called such a thing, on what level is it appropriate to attempt to censor games that do exactly the same thing, but that provide more reality to it.
“Violent computer games and films could face new curbs under plans to be put forward by a cross-party group of Mps this week. Legislation would give Parliament and the public a much greater say in the work of the censors, including a power to ban games blamed for causing copycat violence.” Sunday Express

The best possible case in point is infamous Rockstar games series Grand Theft Auto, which throughout its lifetime has possibly come under more gun fire from organisations questioning its content than any other title in history. The company has been forced on numerous occasions to cut parts of its content and even apologise to governments for what they have created there in. And the fact that brings this all into question, is that since the release of the first title, at no stage has this game either been orientated, or marketed towards a youth audience.

"This game is 18 rated so it will not be sold to minors. It is the job of the BBFC to censor game, not ours." Activision Spokesman

It has always had an eighteen certificate rating and continues to do so, but there exist numerous attempts to blame the game for the actions of young gamers that their parents claim have resulted from playing their games.

“Codey Posey, now 16, was found guilty of shooting his father, stepmother and stepsister...relatives have filled a $600 million lawsuit against Rockstar Games ..claiming it would not hav happened if it was not for the childs obsession with the game” Ars Technica News 2006

I say unto them, if your child is stupid enough to imitate hi-jacking a car from a video game, you can not have been thinking straight when you decided to buy your child this game, whilst you would have had some inclination of their impressionability. After all its impossible for the child to buy it themselves, no right minded games shop employee would risk there job to sell a game to a minor.

Ash Bowles

Audiosurf

Rez

F Zero

Link

Get Steam Now

Iv just got the DEMO for this game off Steam. Its brilliant. Basically Audio-Surf lets you play your own music, both in the literal sense but also by mapping a huge highway out of your track where the curves and bends are reactive to the music itself. The objective is to collect a pallet of the same coloured blocks, which are also placed precisley on the beats of the track to be in tune with it whilst you travel down and up the highway.

Anything like this catch's my eye and for steam to produce this which i can say looks and plays amazingly is fantastic. Earlier in my blog i reviewed Portal shortly after its release. The game now has massive cult status, and this addition to the Steam libary go's to show how cutting edge and innovative the team is when it comes to making new games. The company has huge downfalls in respect to the upkeep of there platform, and also the numerous bugs Steam has become so famous for, but when a gem like this falls on your lap courtesy of them, its hard not to have love.

Straight away from the first screenshot i saw, i thorught F-Zero X, which if you ever owned a Nintendo console youll be familiar with, this one looks just like the 64 version, but obviously has some higher graphics settings and capability. Then when i realised the concept is it reacts dynamically to your own songs, i thourght Rez! Rez was an amazingly encapsulating cult game which was released back near the launch of the PS2. Its a similar idea where your character selects incoming objects which then create music...the better you do the faster it gets and the more intense, as well as your character evolving in front of you. This works on a similar level but rather than preset songs, playing your own songs? Well hell yes! I love my banging house and electro, and its awsome to play against a song coz you get a feel straight away of how hard the level will be by the intensity of the song! This is a game i would recommmend anyone to download and try. The free demo is available now on Steam, which allows you to choose 5 of your songs to make a level with and play through!

And if you love it enough to buy it for the measly 5 pounds it costs, then you can enjoy playing all your songs through the game and competing globally for the best score on there wordwide scoreboards. Well done Steam, yet again youve impressed me with you brilliantly innovative ideas! :D :D :D

Article Review: Right To Artistic Freedom

.Link

This article was published in FortBendNow, and examines a recent American news story, about a boy in Texas who was banned from graduation and kicked out of school for creating a replica map of his high school in the popular game Counter Strike. it was deemed a Terrorist threat...

Im this article a lead games designer called Kenn Hoekstra defends the boy by declaring, that designers create what they know, as thats what they can accuratley design best. He says that as a developer he has created his house, his old schools, and other similar surroundings during his maturing as a level designer.

Schools themselves are support encourage and reward creativity, and how are they supposed to do that when they are barring elements of it. To declare the creation of it a Terrorist threat is a ludicrous argument to try and hold togther, but the paranoia relating from the countres recent events has shadowed the young boys talent.

I personally play Counter-Strike frequently and its the one game iv played longer than any..about 6 years. Its fantatically simple engine is a great source for budding designers, and the shear fact that if you own the game the engine is avaialbe as open source means everyone has the capability to delve into its design area. I agree with Hoekstra completley.. the boy should not have been punished for his creation, and the extent of his punishment shows the state of Americas general culture.

In the link provided there are lots of images of the map, and you can see it looks very well crafted. To simply stamp Terrorist Threat across the months of hard work this obviously took is crazy.

New Media Landscape

So in refrence to my earlier post about Google as a supercompany, just check out this chart which shows who which companies own what right now. Ther will definatley be things on there you didnt expect, so you can get a bigger picture of how far the influence of these big players stretches :|