Exhibition was on wednesday night… There didn’t seem to be many people from “the industry” there, but then i guess we were meant to have invited people if we wanted them there. Everyone was very professional none the less. Exhibition gave a sense of final accomplishment for the semester. judith.pdf poster.pdfduane.pdf
These were the posters i made for the night…
Ok, so I’m doing this blog, as a way of getting out of tracing over frames… this task is so tedious… I would like to smash something. The stuff that I’m doing is really easy to do, but it’s just so…repetetive. The frames move so much each time that I am unable to simply copy the lines from the one I did before hand. This makes me sad and angry at the same time. We’re running out of time to be doing more of the inbetween frames now, and I have a growing fear that because of the way I’ve done it, the animation is going to be very jumpy. I guess time will tell.
So far, I’ve come to the conclusion that a project of this caliber cannot be finished to a high standard in such a short time.
we decided that I would do the tracing now… instead of pete.. (he even bought a graphics pad too :S) Reason for this is that what we chose to do suits my style better. or at least it seems to.
current status:
trying to get everything organised – have tested out some different styles, I’m pretty set on the one i want to do though. It looks like a scanner darkly. 
here’s the link: a scanner darkly
so we were given the idea to use an existing film for the project… and just rotoscope over that… so we decided to have a look at the site www.archive.org and came up with night of the living dead.
This idea seems to work for us as creating our own video would take ages…. plus tracing over EVERY frame????
reasons for NotLD: it’s semi scary 
, it has great facial expressions, it’s out of copyright, and the fact that it’s black and white means we can spruce it up a lot in the rotoscoping style. Things are falling into shape now.
rotoscoping. the idea we’d been talking about and i dont think i even mentioned it yet.
we’re going to try our hand at rotoscoping
Peter and I decided to join forces in the fight that is studio. His ideas were similar in style to my own, so it seemed to be a logical partnership.
VIDEO!! seems to be the way to go. Pete seemed to like the idea of not just making a stand alone movie.. so the CYOA – choose your own adventure, seems to be a winner atm. If we were to do this idea however, we really need to think about concepts for the story lines. As yet, we are looking up/researching existing CYOA’s for ideas.
I’ve been brainstorming a little more into this at work – ideas just fly at you when you’re filling milk in the fridge (possibly not such a good thing to inhale fridge fumes for too long?)
Maybe, it would be more useful for us as a portfolio tool if we were to display more of our skills that have been accumulated over the 3 year period. So, i started to think about using technology a little more.
We could create: a movie quiz game
options for the game include things like: guessing where quotes came from, creating alternate endings for movies, and people have to guess what movie it’s for, film reinactments of popular movie scenes in an original way, and people have to guess what movie it was. Another play around idea, was creating a documentary take off. This could be made into some kind of trivia game where people guess facts.
priority: come up with story line for CYOA.
Well we’re 4 weeks into the semester, I believed from the start to have my idea all sorted, apart from the finer details… like an actual story.
The idea I had originally planned to run with from the start, was to create a “choose your own adventure” style short movie, made for dvd. However, some problems arose when i started to really think deeper into the idea; like a basic story to film. After talking this problem through with some of my peers, I was given the idea to create a movie version of one of the already existing book stories. Great idea. Still, that would mean a whole lot of work for one person, not to mention the copyright issues involved with this idea considering that I would like to be able to use this piece in a portfolio when Uni is over. SO… solution to these problems, is to find a partner (which, most people are already partnered up or wanting to go it solo), or change my idea… possibly some other options could be thrown in there, like giving it a go and either failing or doing a half-arsed attempt at it.
If I were to choose the second option, and change my idea, there are a couple of things i am thinking about. The most probable of these is to do an online animation style version of the “choose your own adventure” story. HOWEVER, I am of the belief that this could be just as hard 
IMPASS.
Other possible ideas:
- Multimedia package templates for clients requiring portfolios or the likes.
- An advertising campaign for an imaginary company/existing company/UQ Multimedia design degree.
- A movie trailer.
I need more ideas, and a solution FAST.
For assignment 1 “quick and dirty presentation”, the group that I worked in, included David Whipps, Kevin Colombu and myself. Each of us had our own sections to work on while working as a team to complete the task before us. My individual section was the half page flyer detailing what our project consisted of for potential clients.
Girl rock bands. What can be said about them, other than… at least they’re out there giving it a go. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of female rock groups, for reasons one can only assume has to do with the fact that girls over-think things and it seems to show in their lyrics whereas guys, although do think things through, the lyrics seem to just flow and be more carefree about what they say perhaps… (this is all completely opinionated). There’s also something about seeing an all girl band playing rock instruments, singing or at least expressing themselves on a stage, that just doesn’t quite cut it for me. On Friday night however, I had my first experience with a band called hot liquid sex. These three girls on stage together, fit pretty close into my previous descriptions. I should say here that although they aren’t my thing, I can see why people would like them. They have something about them that draws you in, makes you take notice of them. They have something to say, and don’t seem to be afraid to say it in their own way.
Hot liquid sex were the first band on the line up. Second came Melbourne band the Basics.
The Basics have a unique, seductive uplifting sound about them. There was no denying that this band was going to be awesome. Live, they were amazing. Standing, bopping, dancing, and singing right up the very front, able to reach out and touch Kris, had I been game enough, was one of the best experiences. These guys are clearly very passionate about their music, and constantly feeding off their audience to get some feedback on how their performance is going. Amazing set of great songs. Their get up is simple but effective. Grey suits, white shirts and ties, classy but not too formal. I guess it also helps to have a drummer as amazing as Wally aka Gotye (drool). The Basics are great, but I’m sure that some of their appeal comes from the fact that Wally is a part of it. It certainly was my draw card. Having said this, my night was made LEGENDARY when after having a chat to the man himself, I actually got a hug from him. Very much made my night!
Third band to play, and the headline act, was the Offcuts. This band were definitely worth hanging around for. Once again, standing front of the stage, This band had a lot to offer the audience who soaked the music right up. Surprisingly, this band doesn’t seem to have a myspace page. perhaps a harder search is needed. Not really sure how to describe these guys other than having an awesome stage presence. At one stage, the bass player pulled a girl from the audience to the stage and got her to play the tambourine, the lead guitarist walked off stage with his guitar and into the audience for a short period. This all added to the band’s appeal, and presence. Once again, their music is inspired, uplifting to listen to, a definite experience not to be missed.
The troubadour as a venue although is small, seems to make the performances more personal to the audience. Seemingly a good choice for bands such as these at the stages that they are at.
Awesome gig
Scenario: Jim Barry is a 25year old personal assisstant to a relatively large music label executive. Jim has worked for this executive for a great number of years and has actually held his position, longer than any other in the office. One day Jim gets up the courage to ask his boss for some support and backing for the band that he plays in as his other “career”. Straight out he gets told that he doesn’t have a chance with the label and should go somewhere else. Thinking to himself, ‘well that’s a kick in the pants, loyalty hasn’t got me anywhere’, what would be the logical step to take next to generate interest in his band?
Scenario: A Brisbane Indie band want to release a new single, so they get the cd’s pressed and have a single launch tour around australia, beginning in their home town of brisbane. In an attempt at getting more people to have at least heard a song of theirs, they take their song to all the radio stations in brisbane and sydney along with some other states as well, hoping their song will be added to a high rotation playlist, or even on low rotation. Triple J, a station known for their new music, and alternative edge turn down the song, giving the reason that they sound too commercial to be played in the set they had a chance at fitting into. Turning on their heel, another radio station turns their song down, telling them that their song is not commercial enough for their listeners. Being thrown backwards and forwards, they eventually get put on a radio station in completely random states (2). Thinking that it wasn’t good enough because they primarily want a brisbane fan base along with sydney and melbourne, what is the logical thing for them to do to generate interest in their music?
In both of these scenarios, the best thing that they could possibly do to generate the fan bases that they are after, is to take advantage of the media’s that are available to them. In Brisbane alone, the street press is amazing for local bands. The press i refer to here is Timeoff, Rave and Scene magazines. They’re there for the fans and for the bands and to connect the two together. This is where the bands gig lineups will be shown and advertised, and the reviews for local artists are generally quite respectful of the bands. There is a section in each for the local artists news, so quite possibly, both of these artists, could have gone down this avenue for PR.
This is not really what i was getting at however. If you’ve looked at any band posters where it shows you how to check them out, it’s generally a website. Not just any website however, it’s a myspace page. Anyone who is anyone these days have got a myspace page. Radio stations I have noticed, have stopped even saying the bands website as port of call; it’s all about www.mypace.com/arcticmokeys or something similar. The popularity of such a site, it could be guessed, is because of the networking capabilities it offers it’s users. Bands are able to upload their music onto their page, and have the ability to let users download certain tracks, rate them, add them to their own myspace page, add comments, read the lyrics to the songs. Not only this, the bands are able to post their upcoming tours and gigs on their myspace site so that users can see where and when to go and see them play live. Fans can leave comments on their pages, send messages for only the bands to see (more likely, the person they have looking over their page ). Not only this, the band can post blogs for their bands, if there’s a new announcement, or just a drawing near gig or cd launce, they can post a bulletin to all their “friends”. Really myspace, although lacking in some design aspects, is really the most useful tool a band can make use of with respect to getting themselves heard and creating a fan base.
Not even just for music. Myspace is there for the people, so if they want something to be heard or seen or watched, they post it on myspace, bobs your uncle. If it’s good, someone will pick it up and then show their “friends” and then it begins. Instant following. Depending on your networking on myspace, it can also land you in situations where jobs or projects can come about. A while back, i was asked by another design student to help create a web animation for his website, other people have been asked to design posters for bands, really the possibilities are seemingly endless.
As a social networking tool, myspace is also highly popular because it allows for IM and also just general commenting on people’s pages. This site is a huge procrastination tool as hours can be lost just reading and looking through peoples pages. Better than this however, is the fact that because almost everyone of our generation has a myspace page, you can find old friends you’ve lost contact with by looking through other friends pages that may connect you with them.
For bands I have had contact with personally, I know of instances where myspace has landed them as support for touring bands. Before you would have to have some kind of connection between the bands whether it was through their managers or the venues, where now, myspace is that linking connection.
Myspace has taken the world on, and until a better version is available, it will continue to be one of the biggest networking tools for bands and their fans and just people in general.
