Ink.....ARGH!!

This has been ONE HELL OF A BREAK! I've been appointed as this year's Graphic Designer for MUBS last October. In addition to regular MUBS stuff, I also have to work with INK. The Editor asked me if I was willing to be the graphic designer for the first edition of INK this year. Duties included handling all the visuals, cover and page layout. Since I had never done a magazine layout before (i've always done posters n stuff) and since I thought it was one my responsibilities, I said yes. I figured it would be good for my portfolio to have a variety of stuff in it, and this was a good opportunity.

The editor thought the break would be perfect to get everything done. Thinking this would only take a few days I agreed to it. Boy was i wrong! I had never used InDesign before, so my first objective was to learn how to. After hours and hours of online tutorials, i gathered a few basic skills to get me started. At that point I learned that I wasnt required to do the INK layout...I could actually have said no...but it was too late, and i needed this for my folio. I decided I would not do the 2nd edition then.

So i realised, I basically had one shot at this for now...its one edition, and I had to give it all..make it a good piece! What I thought was going to be a few days work took the whole of my easter break to be done. I could only spare a few hours to for the Green Screen testing (post+pictures on this later) on Thursday, then I had to rush back to the INK office.

Sadly I did not have much time for studio during the break :( Did not have time for any of the other units for that matter...it was intensive work on INK all week. Although it might not seem wise to spend all of my break on this magazine right now, I was hoping in the long run it would pay off. I want to apply for a summer internship this year, and hopefully my work for MUBS will help me.


UPDATE FOR STUDIO:
Learned a bit more about lighting and the actual green screen itself through tutorial videos.
Learned about some programs which could help us with Special Effects. (Effects Lab)
Tried some random shots in the green screen room, learned a bit more about lighting...more on this later in another post.

Green Screen...

I've booked the green screen room for tomorrow to do some test shoot. We need to try and figure how this whole thing works. A few days ago, I had no idea what Chroma Key meant. Had to do some research to find out what it means.

This is the answer I got from wikipedia.org: " Chroma Key is a technique for mixing two images together, in which a color (or a small color range) from one image is removed (or made transparent), revealing another image behind it. This technique is also referred to as color keying, colour-separation overlay (CSO), greenscreen, and bluescreen."

Now, how do we do that? More research!
I watched some videos on youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6brdwY-dvU
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5GsbrgmUV8
to find out more.

I also read a tutorial on how to do this using Final Cut Pro. But I think I would rather do it on a PC. I should go find another tutorial for after effects or something.

I meant to do more research on the subject before doing the test shoot tomorrow, but I couldnt. As graphic designer for MUBS, I have been working on the design and layout of INK intensively for two weeks now. The magazine being due at the printer's on Monday, I should be able to get back to working on studio next week.

Sketches...

 

I forgot to post some of the sketches I made of the set. I am in charge of the set, and Lauren is in charge of the characters. I looked up a few pictures of haunted houses, attic, entrance hall etc. and came up with a few ideas. The final set is yet to be designed..

Project Plan...

Finally finished the project plan, although Lauren was supposed to do the gantt chart and the printing..I wonder how this went. I sent her the formatted project plan last night, and she only had to add the gantt chart to it. Told her to get back to me as soon as possible so that if anything goes wrong, we still have time to make things right. But its already 11:30 am and i haven't heard anything from her yet. Sent a text message earlier today..still nothing. No wonder i'm worried!

The project plan required a lot more work than I thought. I realised that on the Friday after studio last week. I called Lauren and told her we should meet up this weekend, but she was not willing to, so I said Monday then. But again she said it takes too long to get to uni and back home and she has work that night. So i had to write up most of the plan during the weekend by myself, while Lauren was doing some testing at home, and did the storyboard.

I was worried we might not finish in time, since we would only meet up the day before its due. I knew that was too late, but Lauren wasn't free before that. Things like task breakdown, milestones etc. had to be discussed in group.

Nevertheless I kept working on the plan all throughout the weekend until Monday night. I figured I would dump all the content in a word document and then worry later about formatting it so it looks nice. Unfortunately this approach did not work well for me, since it took over a couple of hours to just make it look nice. I had the wrong approach, I had designed a layout in Fireworks, and then transferred all the contents on it..which took forever when it came to pictures (Storyboard). I should have used InDesign or something, but unfortunately I had no idea how it works. Note to myself: Learn how to use InDesign!

We met up with Mark on Tuesday to ask him a few questions about the plan, and I came out of the office with my stress level twice as high as before! I did not do a great job with the writing, most of the sections were too brief/vague and had to be more accurate.

We went straight to a lab from there and got back to work. I got back to writing the plan, while Lauren was adding a few tweaks to the storyboard and completing her bio. She was also in charge of doing the Gantt chart, since I had too much on my hands already. Lauren could not concentrate on the chart and was worried about going back home late. She said she would complete the chart at home. I was worried about not getting everything done by tonight, but I didnt object to her leaving. She was in charge of printing and binding, and I had to send her the formatted document via email.

After a few more hours, I finally got everything done and it looked gooood! Since this was in fireworks (yes, i know..what was I thinking?!) the files were huge... 63Mb in all! Had to send her 9 emails to get everything through. I also sent a template and the font I used if ever she wanted to add something. I left the lab at 01:00, relieved but still a bit worried at the same time. I was worried about Lauren doing the gantt chart at the very last minute and then being late for binding or something. I'm a bit of a worrier =)

Oh well, the lectures start in an hour..I'm hoping to see Lauren and the printed project plan then =)

Change of mind

After today's class, I realised that the whole project sounds a bit ambitious. The idea of building a 3D environment and including real people in it sounds really good. Initially we wanted to keep it as realistic as possible, but I realised that it might be way too much work, so I might have to talk to Lauren about toning it down a bit. Might need to switch to a cartoonish style.

I actually have no idea how it should look, so I have to go do some research about it...sigh

Getting started...

After the first week, all we had figured out about the project was that we were going to build a 3D environment and put real people in it (and maybe some special effects if we had enough time).
Again, I was scared since that same week Lauren and I came up with a great, ambitious project for our Principles of Educational Multimedia project...I really hoped we would be able to find enough time for Studio and POEM!

In week 2's lecture, Lauren came to me and told me that a friend of hers and herself wrote a story when they was younger. That same friend suggested using the story for our studio project. The story is basically about a guy, Terry, who's dead and lived as a ghost in an old house with his cat, Bob. The thing is that he didnt know he was dead. I immediately agreed to it, because I loved the idea.

While in the lab, we came up with a modified storyline for the project. The storyboard was all done =) (it was in our heads, but still..) We already knew exactly what kind of environment we wanted, the characters we needed and most of the camera angles we were going to use.

It felt soooooo goood having a plan! Atleast now I knew what was going on, where this was heading. But again, it was another ambitious project for us, and we were only 2...scarreed..aaaah! but also really excited! If all goes as planned, this will be really good =) So after the class, we had already distributed a few tasks:-
Lauren would design the 3D characters we needed.
I was in charge of designing the environment, which was going to be pretty rich and would probably take up most of our time allocated for this project.

I've already done a few sketches of the house and some misc. items we would need. Spent over an hour looking at pictures on Google..waiting to be inspired =)

I will be posting some of the sketches later on...have a lecture in a few minutes, should get going!

Finally...

The blog's finally here! yayy!

Been hyped up about the studio project since last semester, but after the very first lecture I got scared. Scared about what to do, will it fit my folio, scared about time management etc..

Finding the right studio partner was easy, it was set since last semester itself =) I wanted to stay away from 3D stuff for this project..but the first thing my studio buddy(Lauren) jumped to was 3D animation...argh!

I have no problem with 3D really, I actually did really good in my 3D unit. I just don't think that I would head into 3D once I graduate, so i thought I should do a website or a flash application or something. I'm thinking about heading into advertising/website/ graphic design.

But then again, you never know what might happen later..now was not the time to start setting too many boundaries about what I want to do. So I agreed to Lauren's project idea. It was more of a compromise..we'll do a 3D thing now, and next semester we'll do something in Flash maybe, this way we have 2 very different pieces for our folio. Seemed like the best thing to do anyways.