3208 Doodlez

I had a BIG change in this Assignment since my last post. I thought of something better. Going to have a different feel to it altogether now. Wheeee... Here's an update.

So I went to take pictures around the campus recently for this Assignment... paying close attention to my photography techniques. I really took note of the golden ratio and all. Plus the focal points in a shot. You know, that 9-part grid technique. And I have to admit, my photos look a lot better than ever, ever since I gotten conscious abotu the way I angle my shots. Hmmm... Cool. :)

I'm currently working on the video now. It's not done yet but it will be soon. Due to my time limitation (plus mid-terms this week! EEEKKK!!! >_<), I decided to go with a tip Jia Xiang offered me and the other students: Create simple transitions with a simpler video editing software, export it as a movie and then make it look better with After Effects.

Yup, so that's what I'm trying to do now. But I'm having problems with the video I imported into After Effects. One of the picture kept going missing. It's really weird. I tried changing it even, but no luck. Haish. A kink I must somehow overcome.

So here's a little snippet of what I thought of so far:
- I decided to go all sentimental with my pictures. I actually came up with a non-rhyming poem (although the last bit does ryhme)
- I got some very melodious royalty free music that fit nicely with my storyplot.
- Speaking of the storyplot, I followed the Assignment 3 guidelines and came up with an introduction, a middle part and an ending.

The title of my movie will be "More than just a university". The movie will comprise of 32 pictures with into and ending scenes, narrated by short sentences. The pictures are not funny, but when coupled with certain sentences, it seemed rather hilarious to me. :) I wonder if the rest would find it funny. It is about 3 mins long (don't worry, it did not exceed).

The music I chose came from danosongs.com. I picked 3 songs to be played in the video.

A brief description of this movie would be a guide through my entire journey in NUS, in chronological order. 

Here's the storyline for the entire movie and each line is a new scene (pic):

Title Scene (with title and my name)

Your flags wave, (pic of flags)
Greeting me, (pic of welcome sign)
As I started out my journey. (pic of university hall)

I was once lost, (
But then I was saved.

Along this winding journey,
You showed me a straight path.

I soared to new heights,
And saw the beauty that surrounds me.

When I had to walk a mile,
You gave me a free ride.

Be it a snack,
Fast food,
Or a gourmet spread,
You made me run for more,
While I remain afloat
As I make every shot count.

Amidst the learning journey,
I was swept in a calm sea,
Regaining my sanity,
As I rejuvenate
In your vast abode.

As I await my destiny,
I looked up, and there you are,
guiding me through
My final phase.

I will rejoice and pose shamelessly here,
Waiting to be part of something new.

Although my time here would eventually pass,
I will never forget you.

Because to me, you are
More than just a university.

I showed the simple version of this (done by Photostory) to my dad, and he said it was touching... Awww... :)

Ok, I have to go now. I may not have school today, but I have to hand in the CD and a storybook for the Random Blends exhibition. See ya.

I just thought of a theme.

"There's no place I'd rather be."

This theme is all about NUS as a campus. It allowing me to explore, create moments, meet friends, the perfect environment for work and play, etc. It's going to be heartfelt most of the time with a bit fast paced in the middle.

Now what I need to do is:
- Storyboard
- Music accompaniement
- the kind of arrangment of pictures...

I'll have to think more about it.

Ok, so we got news of Assignment 3 yesterday. Sounds simple? Perhaps. But I really wanna do something different and creative. While Dr. Julian was explaining (come to think of it, I think he's the only one reading this blog) about Assignment 3, I have this idea formulating my mind.

Let me try to visualise it here in words. Hmm. It's something like... a grid of 9 pictures at a time. And each photo will swivel around on itself to show another photo. And the whole theme is "Sights of NUS", revolving around the vibrant locations and places to see and do in NUS. I will take crafty snapshots of places which I can cut up to form a jigsaw of different images pieces together tastefully. Maybe I can form the word NUS out of pictures? Hmmm..... that will take coordination... and accuracy in the details and sizes...

Well, that's one idea for now.. I want to see if it's possible to do first.. If not.. I'll think of a narrative plot.. I have this great idea on how to end it.. A picture of me, left of the picture, back facing the camera, looking up at the night sky (and I will edit the photos and insert bright stars), and the words "Where do you want to be?" and flash the NUS logo, at the bottom right hand corner. The scene will be dark, so the words can be clearly see in white. I'm thinking... for this plot... maybe if I have the whole thing to be like... different locations in NUS that will represent things people do there.. not just taking pictures of the garden or what not la (I have no idea what people do in the garden at NUS... god knows...). Maybe pictures of lecture theatres, science labs, library, computer areas, dance studios, canteen, etc.

Ok, that's what I have at the moment... Will be thinking more into these ideas...

After putting hard work into them, I wanted to just put this up for the world to see...

This is the Planning stage for our big FINAL PROJECT! 2 videos of NUS! You know what. I'm excited. Really. Despite the hectic schedule, not enough sleep, tons of stress, what gets me going is the thought of being creative and doing something I'm passionate about. I love doing videos, graphic designs, any form of media really. It makes me feel... amazing at the end of the day when I get to share the finished product with everyone else.

I have directed and edited about 20 videos by now, most of them from my days in Junior College, part of my job in Student Council other than making annoucements in front of the whole school and doing administrative tasks. So, I guess I'm pretty happy when I get a chance to direct and edit 2 major videos which could one day be of use to the Office of Admission.

Alritey, so here's what happened so far:
- did the pre-production document
- laid out the scripts (but they are subject to change here and there based on which friends agree to be filmed on the video)
- watched a lot of TV to get ideas

It was truly a whirlwind of ideas when I was brainstorming.. whoa... like... totally.  Oh, and here's a more updated take on the planning stage of the project.

I have friends from very cool CCAs doing awesome things within NUS and outside. So I asked around and I think I'm able to get a band to perform some songs for me! We're still talking about it and who know... I can get something good... some sound effects for the transitions perhaps? Or even a cool game show theme song! I know GLEE the series makes use of choir vocals and the marching band sounds fro their transitions as well as sound effects that follow certain events (like some one storming off after getting angry)

Then, something in me got me thinking.

I realised that a lot of my ideas center around the other things we can do in NUS, rather than the main thing we do in NUS, and that is to study and do our modules. To me, it feels ok because that's my angle. It's hard to emcompass everything about NUS into 3 mins and still be able to be detailed about all the aspects.

It's really a matter of breadth and depth, isn't it? How much range do you want to put in, and how much depth are you going to venture in? Everyone will make their decisions differently on this. For me, I feel that it's best (at least for this project) is to go all out in the specialty that I chose, which is stuff other than lectures and tutorials. It is still NUS when you think of it. Most of us students have so many things going on other than simply studies.

Furthermore, another reasoning would be that filming the academia will be hard to schedule as lecturers, tutor, will find it difficult to accommodate us. And also, if students and parents want to know more about the academic prospects of NUS, chances are they will skip videos altogether and go straight to the details and official information presented on the NUS website. It's just the impression that videos are for fun and laughter. So thus, I'm going to be sticking to the fun aspects of NUS. :)

That's it for now. More on this soon enough!

Hey, so it's been quite a while since I blogged huh? Yeah, been rather busy with all the projects and assignments and what-not. Let me just quickly summarise my first Assignment. Which was group work too.

Summary:
- Coded all the pages to link to one another. Wasn't so difficult as I could simply copy-paste teh webpages, then edit them to their different looks.

- Jalea did all the designs and headers. I simply put them in place.

- Sharon tried her best to come up with a design of her own, but that didn't work out well as her design looks more suited for a airplane insurance website.

- So in the end, due to the limited amount of time, and seeing as none of us knew Javascript well to make the pages more interactive, we were left with design ideas waiting to be implemented by real programming people. Haha.. I mean.. that's just my honest opinion about the whole issue.

It's not easy creating a fully functioning website with all the different interactive elements simply by knowing CSS. It is undeniable that we'll need to venture into really awesome HTML and Javascript langauge to come up with super cool websites. And seeign as how none of us are Computing students, it was highly unlikely that I could learn a crash course in Java and still be able to create amazing interactive elements that can work and be maintained easily by others on this little website that we created in over a week.

I know my limitations to this Assignment very well. Yes. But I also know that my design ideas have no boundaries. I am aware of the things that are possible in website creation and although I do not possess the ability to make it happen within a week or so, I am sure that there are others who could take my idea and make that happen.

So thus, to me, Assignment 1 was more about my team coming with ideas that could be feasible in actual real revamped CNM website rather than coming up with a final WYSIWYG (What-you-see-is-what-you-get) product where you take whatever that you see on our revamped website.

Thus, here is the website: http://nm3208.thruhere.net/

If I can, I will try to neaten it up further for a nice presentation on Tuesday. :) But for now, I will give a quick run-down of the website elements:

Elements:
- One unique feature to this revamped site is the new page called CNM Galleria. It is supposed to be a platform to showcase work from past students from different media modules. It is about time that CNM prides itself fro their students work online. Although I'm sure their work has spread far and wide without the CNM department's help (for example, YouTube, Blogs, publications, etc.), it would be better if CNM could link up all those resources to the website.

- Another idea I'm vouching for is CNM News. Students need to be updated with whatever that's going on with our department. For example, new modules? Lecturers? Career talks? Internship openings? Things like that. It would give CNM Students a closer feel to their department rather than having to refer to FASS for news.

- Since we are required to have the navigation bar above, I realised it is highly useful for navigation. Plus it saves space. So therefore, we will not be adding any additional links on the mainpage as there will just be unnecessary overlapping. And I do not want to control the user's ability to go to a page (like say if I were to disable all the sub-menus and force the user to go the that page so that it can link up to another sub-page.... ICK. NOT GOOD).

Alrite, here's what I have for now. Will be blogging about the Pre-production Planning soon.

Ok, so I created my website with a total of 14 pictures. Now, let me explain the story behind the pictures. Ok, I tried to be different by showing an un-typical day at school, well it's basically a day in the university when there is no 'school'. Haha... Thought it was super funny in my mind when I pictured it. Looking at the simple website I created... Not bad but not like WOW either... SO I may have to redo this again... it's nothing exciting... just plain boring in my opinion.

The link to this website is here (for now): \\cnm\web3208\TUE\u0802372\A2\Draft 1\Siti Assignment 2.html

I will get a server of my own later, and upload it there...

Alrite.. I don't want to be late for class...