THE HUGE MEGAPOST Part 3 - Portfolio Compilation

It was one heck of a night trying to put everything together...... I started of rearranging all the stuff I did into the 2 DVDs, but soon I realized that there simply wasn't enough time to finish everything at one go; time to MULTITASK!!!

I had my desktop and laptop side by side; desktop was for encore, after effects, premiere; laptop was for photoshop and file organization. The only thing communicating between these 2 devices was my portable HDD.

These were some of the stuff I needed to do on Sunday,

- DVD authoring
- DVD label design and print
- Learning Journals
- Assignment 1 and 2 videos

Of which, the learning journal and DVD authoring took the MOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSTT time.


LEARNING JOURNAL

For the learning journal, it was really time consuming to record my voice for each assignment, edit and render the videos, so I took an alternative route to do this, using Camtasia. Its like a simplier version of Adobe Premiere, with its own unique functionality. But basically, I used it for all my screen capture and captioning. For assignment 1 and 2 final videos, it was also done using Camtasia.

Screen capturing took me 4 hrs alone to edit and compile (during the wee hours in the morning).

DVD Authoring

Dvd authoring was a totally new field to me, I never had any idea on how to do this. However, thanks to videocopilot, I managed to learn how to get it done within a day (videocopilot is like a personal tutor to NM3208 now). However, there are alot of components to making a DVD menu from scratch and when Rozmail told me that he used iMovie to make his DVD menu template, I was pretty shocked....

DVD Label Design

I seriously didn't like doing this, because there were so many things to consider, including getting templates, setting up printer, buying empty disc labels etc. Of which, I was super frustrated over setting up my printer for label printing because my computer didn't have a preset to print it. I ended up scanning my label in photoshop for its exact size so that the print out looks ok.

Here's the scanned pic (yeah it was white and I had to use a book to make the outline of the labels stand out).

My label design was based on this blog, so this is my design,


The design was rather simple, it was just a table with my spectacles, something to represent the geek in me

By the time I finished this it was already 7am in the morning... the strange thing was I was still quite awake then, until I took a short nap for 1hr + ... and really felt super tried.

All the designing, compiling, testing, pasting, cutting done in 1 day, IT IS FINALLY DONE!!!

THE HUGE MEGAPOST Part 2 - Video 2: I Was From CNM

I finally had time to edit this after submitting my coding assignment. I definitely have to thank filzah for helping me out with this video before I took over, at least she helped me out with compiling the raw videos. Ok! Here are some of the fixes I did over the past 2 days,


In this case, the aspect ratio of the raw clip is 16:9, but when she rendered in .avi it was in 4:3, hence the letterbox. Luckily I still had the original raw clip, so I might as well edit this video in 16:9... and it becomes this,


Also, I've added a little scotch tape to make it look really like a page in a scapbook. There was also the page flip effect which I had to handle too, but the final effect is something like what you would see below,

Notice the stuff on the page is flipped together too? The key here is to parent all elements in a page to the paper that you're going to flip in after effects. Of course, here's the video,

THE HUGE MEGAPOST Part 1 - Superhero effect

IT IS FINALLY OVER!!!

I can finally catch some sleep after getting the DVD portfolio done. But before I talk about my DVD portfolio I shall just go through the last 2 assignments I did before the portfolio itself.

Assignment 6 - Superhero Effect

For this assignment, my storyline was rather simple and you can pretty much guess it by looking at the title.


Yup, The Healer (with some special effects added). Here are some of the fun stuff I did during filming and after effects editing.


It took me some time to get this right, but the cuts looked pretty real to me, added some bruises and scratch, as well as a glow on the healer's hand. The process of making this is available in a tutorial in www.videocopliot.net (just search for healing).



This is a shot of me getting knocked down by a car. I seriously had no idea how to get it right. It took more than 6 takes to roughly get the effect needed.

Ok, Here's the video,

Video Project - Video 1: NUS Advertisement

I apologise for the late update, this video was already done a week ago and I was held up by "hell week" when all other deadlines come crashing on me.

A short introduction to how the idea was conceived, it all started with the idea of promoting NUS through different aspects, food, people, culture, facilities etc. However, after the presentation of our concept and storyboard to the class, we realized that this idea was similar to what most students did over the past few semesters and it wasn't unique enough. Hence, we changed our concept a little and came up with the theme of statistics versus the truth as told by students in NUS.

A consultation with Dr Julian revealed a big problem to us, we have to get to many specific places, getting permission from them and finding the right people to film, within such a short period of time. The worst thing of all, we have only 1 chance for a good take, done within 2 weeks! That would not be feasible given the tight schedules me and Filzah faced. Luckily, he gave us a great suggestion from the first scene of our storyboard, which is to get students from different countries to say something about NUS and place them in a collage. In this case, we wouldn't even need to get the specific people to their specific places to do re-shoot, we just need to approach another foreigner for help. Each shot would need roughly 5-10mins, which is reasonable considering the amount of time most students in NUS can spare (sigh... ironic why would they love NUS in the first place).

With that in mind, we began working on it and used this cardboard as our prop,All we needed them to do is to say something on why they love NUS, followed by a pose saying I love NUS. Hence, our week was filled with targeting potential foreigners all over NUS. I could still remember the first day we went out to film, there was hardly any foreigner in sight, so we approached Dr Michael Brown as our 1st foreigner to film (He was my lecturer in CS3343: Digital Media Production last semester).

(Googled for the pic)

We had better luck over the next few days with more people willing to help us out. However, at the end of our filming schedules, I realized we made a big blunder. We forgot to check our video output if it was set to 16:9 or 4:3. Also, the sound capture was rather bad at some places (e.g Canteens, open spaces etc), because of the environment sound was captured together with the speech as well. Though we filmed more than 15 people, regrettably we could only select the 9 best ones and edit them in our video.

As for the editing part, there were only 2 significant problems faced. The first one was to do with freezing the frame. In adobe premiere there was only the option to freeze the entire clip instead of that particular frame; I had to export all screenshots of the frame I needed to freeze and import them again into the video. The other problem was actually due to the aspect ratio of the raw clips; because the video format was supposed to be in NTSC in 4:3 instead of 16:9, hence the 2 black strips.

For the title page, I had it done with after effects after looking at some of the great tutorials over at http://www.videocopilot.net on creating really cool titles for videos.

Without further ado, enjoy the video,

FINALLY KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY IS DONE!!!!!!

For the love of god, I'm finally done with this time consuming assignment (took almost 1 week of late nights till 4am) to get this up.

Some description of my work and the things I've learnt doing it,

• NUS corporate colors were mainly used (blue background against orange/white words)
• I've decided to use this font CAPTURE IT, because of its unique design, being able to stand out ,though its a little bit conflicting with the tone of the president's speech.
• I tried looking for help animating physics (collisions, gravity etc), but its gonna be really technical (expression coding involved) and its a real pity to leave it out for now.
• Sentences are best kept within a composition so that its easier to edit from there.
• Alternating between 3D and 2D scenes takes some time to get used to, because of the graphic placement and using top/left/bottom/right cameras to ensure its placement.

Ok, without further a do, here's the video

Assignment 3 - Ken Burns Effect

Finally had time to update this blog after a hectic week of tests, coding assignments and presentation done. For this assignment, we are supposed to create a video to showcase what you like/ what is unique about NUS, using numerous still pictures and transition effects.

The theme of this video is about NUS rag and flag, a unique event that bonds the faculty together in building decorative structures using recycable materials.

The photos used in this video was actually from both my friends' camera and mine. They were all taken using DSLR / High megapixel cameras, which explains the quality, as well as the size of the .mov file.

Based on the comments given last week, the music was a little bit too sad and slow, which I thought otherwise, because the keywords tagged to the music was "inspiration and heartfelt" LOL. I could try looking for 2 tracks too, a little bit fast tempo for the first part and slow for the second. Wished I had 48hrs a day now...........


Here's The video, hope you guys liked it =)

Final Project Preproduction

I shall just roughly go through the 2 video ideas that we had presented in class my thoughts about it.

video 1 - NUS advertisement: Why NUS? Because its time WELL SPENT?
The focus of our NUS advertisement would be to showcase different aspects of NUS and to let them realise that their experince in NUS would be fruitful and enriching. This is done so through a few sections of the advertisement.

Education
A wide diversity of disciplines to choose from (11 faculties in total)

Flexibility
The numerous modules to choose from, timetable builder

Culture
Networking with people around the world. Wide selection of food choices from different nationalities.

Teamwork
Teamwork is all around NUS, in sports, projects, discussions etc

My Thoughts
After the critique session in this week's lecture, I felt that we may have to rethink our idea. We were advised by Dr Julian to consider its originality because there were groups from previous batches who did similar stuff. Flexibility needs to be researched upon because it may differ from different faculties or even different universities. Lets hope that mental spark would hit my head and some idea will pop out by this weekend then!

Video 2 - CNM Advertisement: I Was From CNM
This video would be about the overall experience studying in CNM through the perspective of the narrator, who was a graduate from CNM. The style of the advertisement is in a form of a journal.

Lecturers
The first few shots will contain mini clips of lecturers on the left side of the journal, the right side will contain thoughts penned down by the grad.

Friends
Mini clip will be placed in the center, with thoughts penned below it. It will be about the friendships forged through her course of study

MediaHub
Similar format to friends, his part showcases the Singapore being a media hub and how CNM aligns itself with this.

What have I learnt?
The following few parts consist of what she has learnt, different theories, creation, communication skills etc.

The advertisement ends when she writes, "this is why I've got a job that I've always wanted", she closes the book, the screen fades to black with the CNM logo appearing.

My thoughts
This idea is rather original, however my only concern is that there is definitely some form of technical skill involved, like whether to animate handwriting for the journal editing and all

Updates for assignment 1

Hi guys, its been some time since the last update due CNY and Recess Week. Well after all that fortnight of hard work before CNY, this is the final outcome of our revamped CNM webpage


Based on the logo and graphics Filzah has designed, we decided to expand it make it a theme for the webpage. I shall just comment of some of the aspects of this theme.

Color
The colors chosen were a different shade of blue, grey and white as it blends in well with the corporate colors that govern all NUS webpage. The downside of it would be a little bit dull looking.

Font
A sans serif font was chosen (BrowalliaUPC), since it makes it easy for users to read off the web.

Headings


The old CNM website had too many headings and it made webpage looked clustered with information. Hence we decided to regroup the headings into the 5 above. It makes the interface much cleaner for navigation.

Content


It was definitely a headache trying to extract information from the old website to our new revamped one, because of issues such as javascript and the huge amount of information needed to be reorganised. Due to our lack of technical experience, we could only carry out basic organisation such as creating tables, dividers, paragraphing etc. There are very good suggestions brought up during this week's lecture that we could try to use, such as creating a PDF with all the information (e.g module information) or even separate content into text files to allow easy editing. These ideas really made me go "WOW...".

Concluding Thoughts
Well, at least I did learn alot more about webpage creation from this assignment, it takes a good deal of effort to make it look good.

Assignment 2: A Day In The University

Hello peeps, this is the sample pic of a simple web photo gallery which we are supposed to do. The link to the actual webpage is http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~kongchoo/thumbplate.htm



The challenge of this assignment is to keep all files (pics, html, css) under 180kb and still look aesthetically pleasing. I shall just pen down the design process that came into my mind when I was doing this assignment.

• Color was perhaps the most striking theme to me so I decided to focus on a rainbow theme for the webpage.
• I wanted to make the main color of each picture stand out, therefore I desaturated the original photos, played around with the hue and saturation settings and blurred the background a little.
• To keep the colors organized, I've specifically arranged it such that the pics on the left hand contained warm colors ( red, orange, yellow etc) while the right hand side contained cooler colors (Blue cyan green)
• Each pic is a little bit bigger than 320x240 so it is spaced nicely within the webpage using a simple CSS which I got from the web. Captions can be seen via mouseover the pictures, but I've disabled the pic enlargement because of overall size constraints.
• The banner was made from scratch, you can try making it yourself using photoshop via this tutorial http://www.giackop.com/?p=70.
• The only regret I have for this assignment was a lack of storyline since all the pictures taken were quite random. Wished I had more time to think about this.

Thats all from me, feel free to leave any comments, cheers.

Assignment 1 preview!

Hello all, welcome to my NM3208 blog, this is the preview of the 1st assignment that we're supposed to do. I could very well imagine the horrors ahead to complete this task lol..

As you can see, we are supposed to redesign the NUS CNM webpage using the stuff we were taught in NM2208. Due to the NUS corporate rules, we were tasked only to edit the main body of the webpage (i.e whatever that is in between the menu bar and the bottom navigation bar). I shall just pen down some of the thoughts in my design process.

• The layout of the page is kept minimalistic (its like a buzz word now, almost every other cool webpage I've come across so far kept their layout minimal).
• I didn't want the webpage to be too wordy, so 1/3 of it was replaced with photos of what's going on in the department of CNM.
• I checked out the original CNM website and noticed some of the buttons had submenus in them, therefore those buttons with submenus were placed on the menubar on top.
• Current news was given a little more emphasis, so web surfers get to know all the latest events without clicking on anything.
• I used the color red for the inner header bar, since I thought it would be a nice break away from the corporate colors of blue and orange. However, not more than 4 colors were used in total for the webpage (mostly red, orange, blue, grey).

Well thats all from me for now, stay tuned for more updates soon.

Choong Yee