Working on crew's diary (20/3/2014)

* Today I timed myself reading the newest script whilst making the odd change to it. Overall, it looks to be roughly 12 minutes long, thus being a long, but informative cut scene which explains to its audience the world and the crew's goal.

* I also decided to start work on a crew diary that would be included alongside our presentation as a physical book, detailing the character backgrounds and any other adventures they have had. This will also allow me to include parts of another script I was working on so as to not waste material that I enjoyed writing, but felt would be considered filler for the story reel.

* I was also able to tell my lecturer all the things me and my partner have planned to do for this project and explain to him our schedule. He was pleased with it and therefore all of us look forward to the final product.

Emotion and names (13/3/2014)

* After watching my partner present the lore and music for our story reel, we decided to come up with how we would present it as the lecturer was concerned about how we would engage our audience.

• Include headphones and the video on the screen of a computer that the user can play, pause or stop. 
• Stick a large piece of cardboard around the edges of the computer screen. We can then attach paper to the sides of the screen with questions and answers on the right side and the lore and universe on the left side. Above the screen will be a large piece of card with the title on so as to be eye catching.
• Come up with a crew diary of some sort telling past stories and explaining to new audiences the crew's personalities and backgrounds. 
• Ed offered to put together some War Hammer figures and paint them in the style of our characters, so making them another visual reference. We could even mix and match figures to get the desired character appearances.

I also decided during this session to research how to convey the characters emotions more strongly since both my lecturer and I have admitted that my art style is still rather amateur, despite having a distinct style that I plan to keep.


I was lucky to find quite a few good references including the two below. The one of the left is great for shoulder reference and realism. Whereas the one on the right more clearly shows the emotions and effect of eyebrows.  

I also plan to use the art books I have at home as a physical reference when I finally get round to drawing each slide especially since they include step by step guides on how to draw emotions. 

* I then carried on writing the character descriptions and adapted the scripts to fit in with the great ideas for the universe Ed had come up with.

We also now have the names for each character...

• Captain - Ezeriah Dalton
• Pilot - Lance Tactica
• Mechanic - Parva Animus (Parva = Latin = Small) (Animus = Latin = Temper)
• Golem - Rupes (Rupes = Latvian = Caring) 
• Ship - V.I.G.I.L (Vastly Intelligent Gilded Interstellar Life-form)
• Dock Worker - Osborne

We also finally decided who would voice the ship and golem.

• Golem - Unable to do my bass voice without myself thinking it to be just the captain's regular voice, but deeper, we decided that Ed would do it. That way he voices a human, a golem and a robot, thus providing him with a well devised group of characters and races to truly express his voice acting. We will mess around with settings in order to make whatever voice he comes up with sound both deeper and gravely.
• Ship - I will voice the ship so as to add to the diverse cast (human, alien, ship) I will be portraying with numerous voices, thus expanding upon my own acting and range. Similar to the golem, we will try and add some sort of effect over it.

For next week, Ed and I will try and come up with voices that fit these characters.

Ed also took part in an introduction to the recording rooms today, therefore, as long as he is around we will be able to do as much voice recording as we want.

Harvard Referencing:

• Cuder, B (Unknown) Tutorial Page [Online Image] Available at: http://thebarracuda57.wordpress.com/tutorial-page/ (Accessed: 13/3/2014).
• Gemma (2010) Character Development [Online Image] Available at: http://amberdust.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/character-development.html (Accessed: 13/3/2014).

Work schedule (10/3/2014)

* With my partner we were able to write down our work schedule, see below...

March:

10^th - 23^rd :

• Robin: Will finish possible scripts and character descriptions/backgrounds.
• Ed: Will finish the possible history and lore for the universe and come up with names for the fictional game and characters.

24^th - 30^th :

• Robin and Ed:  Will select the final script and character backgrounds before agreeing on the cinematography.

31^st – 12^th of May :

• Robin: Will start to draw the story reel on Photoshop. 

April:

1^st - 29^th :

• Ed: Will put together the folio and music needed.

21^st - 28^th :

• Robin and Ed: Will record our lines.

29^th – 19^th of May :

• Ed: Will start to put together the story reel.

May:

12^{th –}  26^th :

• Robin and Ed: Will create the assets needed for our summer show presentation e.g. posters, information, story reel / board images etc.

19^th : 

• Ed: Will finish the story reel.  

20^th - 29^th :

• Robin and Ed: Will put together the final touches.

29^th: Deadline!

* Last night I started to write alternative backgrounds to each character so as to provide variety and a choice for each one. I continued to write these today.  

* I also worked on the scripts and timed myself reading them. The results are as follows, although they obviously don't include establishing shots and other non conversation scenes that would likely add a minute or two to either.

• The longer first draft appears to be 12 minutes long.
• Whereas, the second shorter draft ended up being 6 minutes long.

My presentation (7/3/2014)

* Today was mostly spent working on the scripts and adding character and personality to each character. One such example includes making the Golem always say "CAPtain" when addressing the captain so as to project his deep voice

* I also did the presentation on my own as my partner is still on holiday and got the following feedback...

• Really enthusiastic and clearly showed my passion for my project. I think leaving my notes halfway through also helped me to just talk about my interest and not read it off a sheet of paper. 
• Presentation looked well put together thanks to the amount of images used over mountains of text.
• Would have liked more information on how our universe would be unique. 
• Really liked the characters and therefore would be interested in seeing character descriptions and backgrounds in order to define them further.
• As Ed wasn't in and I couldn't get his song to play, it would be nice to have him come in maybe next week in order to perform the song live. Speaking of live, the lecturer wouldn't mind hearing us perform at some point. 

Since I had been thinking about writing descriptions for the characters for a while now, and often do so for my own characters in my spare time, I decided to start writing the character descriptions today.  

Despite the fact that I wont post them until I have done them in full, I will write down what will be included...

Name: ?

Role: ?

Age: ?

Gender: ?

Race: ?

Personality:

?

Likes:

• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?
  

Dislikes:

• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?
• ?
  

Motivation:

?

Fear/s:

?

Background:

?

Appearance:

?

Final Character Designs (5/3/2014)

* Having just finished the final character design, I decided to post them all on my blog as seen below...

For the mechanic and golem I was able to add the squid like arms to the former as I was thinking of, and even some stumpy feet to add to his bottom heavy aspect. Whereas, I remembered to add the elemental bit floating underneath the latter. 

When it came to the ship, I decided to include designs from numerous angles and add patterns. I also included a lift so that the crew could get on and off the ship.  

Since I hadn't come up with new concepts based on what Ed thought the pilot could look like, or was able to show him as he was on holiday, I decided to take the aspects he had emailed to me and wing it.

In the end, I am quite happy with the pilot's design since I feel I combined the mechanical arm, short coat, mo-hawk hair and possible deafness (see the things on his ears) quite well.  

Overall, I am very pleased with all of the above and look forward to designing the slides for the story reel with them in it.

Multiple Tasks (3/3/2014)

Today I focused on quite a few things...

* First, I edited the presentation, making sure I used plenty of engaging and relevant images.

I also found out that the lines for the character artwork were too light, therefore I will go back to these and edit them on Photoshop over the next couple of days.

* I then carried on with the possible script, adding scenes that I felt may add intrigue whilst trying to avoid making them pointless or forced exposition. 

The first one includes all the possible scenes I had come up with before, thus giving each character their own time to shine and feel like an actual (if not dysfunctional) family.

Noticing the script so far to be rather long, I decided to make a shorter/to the point version so as to cut out some of the characterisation scenes better suited for a series or later in the game. Therefore, this second script follows the format for a video game cut scene more closely so as to explain enough to a player, whilst getting them into the action as quickly as possible.

* I was also able to find a useful tutorial on how to create a story reel on 'Adobe After Effects' which is the program we are thinking of using. You can find it in the Harvard Referencing below.

* Finally, I did a bit of drawing for the Captain's final design.

Harvard Referencing:

• Vimeo (Unknown) Creating an Animatic in After Effects, part 1. [Online Video] Available at: http://vimeo.com/31181317 (Accessed: 3/3/2014).

Presentations (27/2/2014)

* As my partner is on holiday he provided me a with a YouTube video which shows him playing the song he adapted on guitar for our project, thus being something I could share with the group during the presentations today.

Unfortunately the video will not upload on Blogger, but you can find the link below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFnrLXmgClc

* During the presentations I was able to make some notes for me and Ed's presentation that will be next week.

• Be confident. 
• Learn what is on the screen and face the audience as much as possible.
• Make it presentable by using large images instead of small ones to keep the audience's attention. Also try and make the layout interesting.
• Show all our research to show all the hard work we have done.
• End on a 'killer shot' (image), not a thank you. After all, you want to leave a lasting impression.
• Don't use too much text as you want your audience to listen to you, not be preoccupied reading the screen. 
• No hands in pockets!
• Balance me and my partner's load so as to make it fair.
• Mention during the actual presentation that I will try and post some of the storyboards on the walls in order to show our progress.

I then spent the rest of the session creating a power point for next week, making sure it didn't go over 5 minutes.

* I must print my A3 sheets for next week so that I can display my project outline on the wall. That way others can come back to it in order to see me and Ed's intents.

Harvard Referencing:

• Thresher, E (2014) FMP Update. [Online Video] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFnrLXmgClc (Accessed: 27/2/2014).