My reflection and evaluation:
Relection and Evaluation on my concept and the idea that it stemmed from:
My idea was first for my Final Major Project was first conceived when I was in the shower. I had an epiphany of combining what I did for my projects in Stage 2 of the pathway. For one project I did about creatures. Dragons in particular. In the other project I explored the 'Gothic' and looked at Gothic horror such as literature. I ended up researching into one of the most famous novels of Gothic horror: Dracula which in turn led me to look at vampires. I already had an idea of combining two things and creating conflict between them. For inspiration I looked at what was currently on the television . Seeing the current affairs with constant wars against countries made think about the conflict between two factions or groups. I was influenced for the idea of East vs West especially due to a lot of the conflicts in the news being between those from the West vs those of the East. I also looked at nature for inspiration as the East vs West conflict reminded me of how animals fight for power and territory. This led me to the idea of the Apex Predator (the top predator at the top of the food chain which no other creature predate) and I could use it as an analogy for the power struggle between countries in the contemporary context.
The story for my film takes the idea that the war (in the film's story) is more than just a battle for territory, power or grudges against rival factions but for survival. I thought a film would be the best way to show the analogy of east vs west and rivalry between different factions but using a fantasy setting. A lot of the current conflicts now such as Ukraine and Russia, USA and the war on terror are reflections of East vs West and the idea of the story of pitting life long rivals against each other reflects tensions between countries that are still going on: China and Japan fighting over the Senkaku islands (tensions between China and Japan ever since World War 2) or even super powers such as America and Russia two prime examples of Capitalism vs Communism. A film being set in a fantasy futuristic world can touch on these topics without it being too overt and controversial.
REFLECTION AND EVALUATION OF PROJECT
Relection and Evaluation on my concept and the idea that it stemmed from:
My idea was first for my Final Major Project was first conceived when I was in the shower. I had an epiphany of combining what I did for my projects in Stage 2 of the pathway. For one project I did about creatures. Dragons in particular. In the other project I explored the 'Gothic' and looked at Gothic horror such as literature. I ended up researching into one of the most famous novels of Gothic horror: Dracula which in turn led me to look at vampires. I already had an idea of combining two things and creating conflict between them. For inspiration I looked at what was currently on the television . Seeing the current affairs with constant wars against countries made think about the conflict between two factions or groups. I was influenced for the idea of East vs West especially due to a lot of the conflicts in the news being between those from the West vs those of the East. I also looked at nature for inspiration as the East vs West conflict reminded me of how animals fight for power and territory. This led me to the idea of the Apex Predator (the top predator at the top of the food chain which no other creature predate) and I could use it as an analogy for the power struggle between countries in the contemporary context.
The story for my film takes the idea that the war (in the film's story) is more than just a battle for territory, power or grudges against rival factions but for survival. I thought a film would be the best way to show the analogy of east vs west and rivalry between different factions but using a fantasy setting. A lot of the current conflicts now such as Ukraine and Russia, USA and the war on terror are reflections of East vs West and the idea of the story of pitting life long rivals against each other reflects tensions between countries that are still going on: China and Japan fighting over the Senkaku islands (tensions between China and Japan ever since World War 2) or even super powers such as America and Russia two prime examples of Capitalism vs Communism. A film being set in a fantasy futuristic world can touch on these topics without it being too overt and controversial.
REFLECTION AND EVALUATION OF PROJECT
As well as combining my two previous ideas from previous projects (one on a vampire and one on dragons), I also decided it would be a great idea combining the two of my favourite genres together, horror and fantasy. As vampires are already seen within the fantasy genre I thought it would be perfect to combine them.
I faced practical and technical problems which were mainly based on the filming and the actual editing process of it. I had to cut the film down as there were a lot of imperfections from my film due to either bad acting or filming (extraneous variable such as time of day or weather affected the acting and filming quality a lot).
I had to face the lack of actors available at certain times and the reliability issues of certain actors as many could not turn up on the days I required them for help. I solved this issue by using friends and people around in the current moment. Although this did help me to get certain shots done, I did result in some scenes which did not work mainly due to bad acting. As I had to act myself in some of the scenes it was difficult to direct the camerawork as I envisioned as someone else had to operate the camera. One of the problems I had was that I didn’t instruct my actors on the first day of filming. The next days of filming had significantly improved as I planned what I needed to do and provided clearer instructions to the actors assigning them roles and switching roles (acting and then cameraman).
I was also fined for not returning my equipment on time due to me not being able to on the day it was due which cost me £30 in total. (£10 for each item). It is a lesson I still remember to this day.
I found that the editing was successful and improved parts of the film adding effects and removing imperfections. Problems that were found with editing were due to my slow home laptop which meant my programs such as Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premier and Windows Live Movie Maker did not perform faster or at a sufficient speed to work with ease at. The problem was solved by going to the UCA Library which computers could perform faster and made it easier to work with. Although there were still annoyance and with working at home and rendering out videos with huge file sizes. Each clip was around over 1GB and the overall clip itself is around 34GB (it had to be compressed to fit onto Vimeo). The time it took to export was a problem and the annoyance of not being able to move a project onto another computer as it requires the files from the previous computer.
All the clips I had been working with exported clips that were over 1GB. Which I found was a problem when trying to save it on the UCA Library computer when I was working on the facilities there. As a lot of these exported clips had large file sizes it did become a problem for my home laptop as it was too slow to playback any of them sufficiently. Also whilst working on them in After Effects, a lot of ram was used and as it demanded quite a high amount of ram, my computer performed very slowly which I found infuriating at times.
The evaluation tools that I used were tutorials where advice was sought from the tutors to bounce ideas off and obtain their critique before producing and letting them assess the final outcome. For peer assessments a selective audience will review parts of the project and another selection will view the whole in order to gain opinions on certain parts of the film and as also the film as a whole. At the end of the film, they will be given questionnaires with an section to give a qualitative opinion on the project. A reflective journal will be kept of successful and unsuccessful works (how ideas have been adapted through reflection on what test outcomes were and how negative outcomes were corrected), making it an effective method of self-evaluation.
CRIT 1:
I had to face theoretical problems that I had to solve within my project. After I finished filming my final major project and doing the basic edit, it didn't fully turn out how I expected it or first pictured it as a concept. I found that I had to cut out a a lot of imperfections from my film due to either bad acting or filming (also affected by extraneous variables such as time of day or weather). This left me with the parts which I was pleased with but together they couldn't tell a narrative therefore after tutorials and discussions with my tutors I decided a trailer would be best. It would allow me to cut the clips in such a way and add writing in it to portray some of the basic narrative and if not I could create a teaser trailer instead.
As my project is now in a trailer format, it's harder to show my message of the East and West conflict because of shorter clips and less action is portrayed due to the short length of the trailer. As the trailer allows writing it still allows me to explain some basic narrative and the title gives away the concept of the "Apex Predator". I also had problems with being completely new to Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premier Pro therefore I solved this problem by using YouTube and online video tutorials to help me understand how to get to grips with the basics, show me and allow me to understand different techniques which I found extremely useful.
A lot of my planning was done via a Gantt Chart I produced on Excel. It was created from an initial list of tasks I needed to complete. I then planned the length of time it would take me to complete the tasks into a Gantt Chart (which I created in Excel). On the Y axis above the chart I put in the two months of which I would spend time doing the remainder of the project (March and April) and in the X axis below, I put in the list of the tasks I needed to complete. I then plotted in weeks how long each task may take me and also the period of time across the months. I assigned each task a colour therefore it was colour coded and easier to distinguish each task and the length of time required when displayed on a chart.
For my Gantt Chart I split the timings for my plan of when to do certain tasks for my project over 2 months and further subdividing it into weeks, Approximately in a month there are 4 weeks therefore I used this to plan what I would be doing within each week and how long it would take me. Each different task is colour coded.
For certain tasks such as making the trailer I would create a timeline or a mind map/spider diagram of the list of things I needed to put in or do and I would be able to cross them off and go in any order I wanted. The FMP reflective journal post allows me to also write out and reflect on what I have or will achieve task wise and also write down the problems or the changes that I have occurred or encountered so I could learn and reflect on it to help me later on in the project. It is almost like an diary update.
CRIT 2:
I have already shown my final major project two of my peers who both said they had enjoyed it and "very cool". They "loved the effects and music" and "I love it". I am happy about the positive review on my finished product although there maybe bias as they are my friends.
Although the video managed to upload to Vimeo, I still had to go through many incredibly frustrating technical problems such as a long export time and converting the orignal file to smaller file size to be able to upload to Vimeo. To my annoyance half way through the video, the audio begins to lag a little which removes the suspense to the trailer as the sound was vital for emphasising it.
I had a lot of problem with time constraints and underestimating my timing when I first started planning. I originally planned to use more software such as Adobe Flash (which I have used and learnt a bit about) and 3Ds Max or Maya (which I have not used before). I planned to learn more about the software I had not used and try and implicate those into my project but due to timing restrictions I was unable to and figure out a different way. I found that Adobe Photoshop was something I already knew but the two other software programs that I didn't have much experience in was Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premier which I knew I would use extensively, therefore I could only use my time to focus on them luckily finding Adobe Premier easy to use having being able to explore and figure out how it worked without needing many tutorials as I have had prior experience with other video editing software. Adobe After Effects was quickly learnt with watching the tutorials of the desired effects I required I using the knowledge I obtained and applying it to the software so I could work out how the basics of the software worked. In the end the final project became solely a movie and did not have any flash animation and I knew this was a sacrifice I had to make due to time constraints and organisation.
From this I have learnt that my organisation/planning and time management although has significantly improved from when I first started the course, needs to improve even more for the future and that I should not underestimate timing in general.
Backstory for the story of my final major project film
The idea for my final major project is to create a live action film with a bit of animation within about a battle between Vampires and Dragons. The idea for this stemmed when I was reflecting on my two previous briefs from Stage 2 of course. One brief was focused on creatures, Dragons and the other brief looked at Gothic horror, in particular Vampires. I made a video for my Gothic brief about a day walking vampire who has a monologue about how the vampiric race was hunted down by humankind and how he wants to bring revenge by taking the remaining hiding and surviving vampires to gain re control of the Earth and perform a huge hunt on humankind whilst regaining strength to eventually become the reigning dominant force on the planet.
The back story for the story in my final major project is that, in this story's universe Dragon's are the original creators of the universe and the universe exists due to their existence. Every atom and particle came from dragons. The Earth was formed by dragons and these dragons became the crust, the mantle and the core. Dragons had there own agendas and morals and therefore had different intentions. 'Good' dragons created humankind to inhabit Earth, 'Bad Dragons or fallen dragons' were dragons who were considered lower on the hierarchy due to their immoral or mischievous mindset. They created the humanoid creatures that were enemies to human kind such as vampires and werewolves etc as these were meant to be corrupted creations of humans, species of creatures that were almost a natural culling method to be used on humans. As human kind evolved into existence along with vampires, werewolves and other beings, dragons co existed. Certain humans looked up to them as gods and worshipped or respected them. In the East the dragons had a significant cultural impact. In this story's universe, two warring factions of vampires eventually become one to grow in strength and begin an empire that would eventually expand into the East. The empires of the East were guarded by dragons which the humans of the East respected/worshipped. The vampires had a long troublesome conquest in slaying these dragons and eventually wiping most of them out and causing others to flee and become dormant. Soon the vampires conquered and occupied some areas of the East. The battle between humans and other creatures such as vampires, werewolves etc had become a long going onslaught until finally in the modern day, vampires and other creatures were soon hunted to the near brink of extinction in a attempt for humans to win the upper hand at survival. The remaining vampires had to flee and live either blended in with the humans in bustling cities or out in the woods/countryside living off wild animals or livestock. Years pass to the future where one vengeful vampire (the main vampire) has had enough of being at the bottom of the hierarchy and plans to gather all remaining vampires for a mass hunt on humankind in an attempt to weaken there numbers and take over as the dominant species on the planet. After years of wars against humans and massacres the vampires number become stronger then ever. The lead vampire (the main vampire) separates vampires into different groups and assigns them different outposts all over the world. After years of separation, Speciation occurs as vampires evolve faster than humans therefore mutations are more likely to occur in their genes which causes different vampires in different outposts to have different physical features and powers to each other. In my final major project the story would be that the main vampire (the one in my video for the Gothic glitch in nine brief) becomes the alpha leader of a outpost of vampires situated in a large urban city. Over the years these vampires have become adapted to the city environment and know parkour/freerunning which makes it easier for them to traverse the city rooftops and environment. Being an alpha leader means he has the ability to turn into a gargoyle like creature but the strongest of it's kind in comparison to the vampires that rank below him. Due to many years of adaptation to the city, these vampires are the strongest of day walkers so are not affected by sunlight or pollution although these adaptations have reinforced physical changes in their look such as paler clammy skin, almost rotting in some areas in nature and dark sunk in eyes almost appearing dead like. As these vampires over watch their city outpost and try to defeat or turn the last remaining human rebels, dragons have re-awakened from their dormant state and the same dragons that had be hunted in the East centuries ago have now returned with full vengeance with the goal of reclaiming ruling ownership over the planet. This does not strike fear in the vampires due to the years of oppression from humankind, their hearts have become cold and immune. The vampires just viewed dragons as another obstacle in their path to world domination, a simple threat, another enemy to conquer.
I faced practical and technical problems which were mainly based on the filming and the actual editing process of it. I had to cut the film down as there were a lot of imperfections from my film due to either bad acting or filming (extraneous variable such as time of day or weather affected the acting and filming quality a lot).
I had to face the lack of actors available at certain times and the reliability issues of certain actors as many could not turn up on the days I required them for help. I solved this issue by using friends and people around in the current moment. Although this did help me to get certain shots done, I did result in some scenes which did not work mainly due to bad acting. As I had to act myself in some of the scenes it was difficult to direct the camerawork as I envisioned as someone else had to operate the camera. One of the problems I had was that I didn’t instruct my actors on the first day of filming. The next days of filming had significantly improved as I planned what I needed to do and provided clearer instructions to the actors assigning them roles and switching roles (acting and then cameraman).
I was also fined for not returning my equipment on time due to me not being able to on the day it was due which cost me £30 in total. (£10 for each item). It is a lesson I still remember to this day.
I found that the editing was successful and improved parts of the film adding effects and removing imperfections. Problems that were found with editing were due to my slow home laptop which meant my programs such as Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premier and Windows Live Movie Maker did not perform faster or at a sufficient speed to work with ease at. The problem was solved by going to the UCA Library which computers could perform faster and made it easier to work with. Although there were still annoyance and with working at home and rendering out videos with huge file sizes. Each clip was around over 1GB and the overall clip itself is around 34GB (it had to be compressed to fit onto Vimeo). The time it took to export was a problem and the annoyance of not being able to move a project onto another computer as it requires the files from the previous computer.
All the clips I had been working with exported clips that were over 1GB. Which I found was a problem when trying to save it on the UCA Library computer when I was working on the facilities there. As a lot of these exported clips had large file sizes it did become a problem for my home laptop as it was too slow to playback any of them sufficiently. Also whilst working on them in After Effects, a lot of ram was used and as it demanded quite a high amount of ram, my computer performed very slowly which I found infuriating at times.
The evaluation tools that I used were tutorials where advice was sought from the tutors to bounce ideas off and obtain their critique before producing and letting them assess the final outcome. For peer assessments a selective audience will review parts of the project and another selection will view the whole in order to gain opinions on certain parts of the film and as also the film as a whole. At the end of the film, they will be given questionnaires with an section to give a qualitative opinion on the project. A reflective journal will be kept of successful and unsuccessful works (how ideas have been adapted through reflection on what test outcomes were and how negative outcomes were corrected), making it an effective method of self-evaluation.
CRIT 1:
I had to face theoretical problems that I had to solve within my project. After I finished filming my final major project and doing the basic edit, it didn't fully turn out how I expected it or first pictured it as a concept. I found that I had to cut out a a lot of imperfections from my film due to either bad acting or filming (also affected by extraneous variables such as time of day or weather). This left me with the parts which I was pleased with but together they couldn't tell a narrative therefore after tutorials and discussions with my tutors I decided a trailer would be best. It would allow me to cut the clips in such a way and add writing in it to portray some of the basic narrative and if not I could create a teaser trailer instead.
As my project is now in a trailer format, it's harder to show my message of the East and West conflict because of shorter clips and less action is portrayed due to the short length of the trailer. As the trailer allows writing it still allows me to explain some basic narrative and the title gives away the concept of the "Apex Predator". I also had problems with being completely new to Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premier Pro therefore I solved this problem by using YouTube and online video tutorials to help me understand how to get to grips with the basics, show me and allow me to understand different techniques which I found extremely useful.
A lot of my planning was done via a Gantt Chart I produced on Excel. It was created from an initial list of tasks I needed to complete. I then planned the length of time it would take me to complete the tasks into a Gantt Chart (which I created in Excel). On the Y axis above the chart I put in the two months of which I would spend time doing the remainder of the project (March and April) and in the X axis below, I put in the list of the tasks I needed to complete. I then plotted in weeks how long each task may take me and also the period of time across the months. I assigned each task a colour therefore it was colour coded and easier to distinguish each task and the length of time required when displayed on a chart.
Gantt Chart
For my Gantt Chart I split the timings for my plan of when to do certain tasks for my project over 2 months and further subdividing it into weeks, Approximately in a month there are 4 weeks therefore I used this to plan what I would be doing within each week and how long it would take me. Each different task is colour coded.
I then created a second Gantt Chart showing the days where I did the actual filming for my final major project in a comparison to the Gantt chart above to show the actual time frame it took me and reflect on how I had tackle filming certain scenes and organising what would be done when. One of the challenges I had to tackle were relying on people so I had to work out when which people would be available for which days hence the scenes not being filmed in chronological order. Again I used colour coding for each scene. This Gantt chart shows that filming actually occurred over two weeks within four days.
My original starting mindmap/spider diagram plan for my FMP put up on a wall.
CRIT 2:
I have already shown my final major project two of my peers who both said they had enjoyed it and "very cool". They "loved the effects and music" and "I love it". I am happy about the positive review on my finished product although there maybe bias as they are my friends.
Although the video managed to upload to Vimeo, I still had to go through many incredibly frustrating technical problems such as a long export time and converting the orignal file to smaller file size to be able to upload to Vimeo. To my annoyance half way through the video, the audio begins to lag a little which removes the suspense to the trailer as the sound was vital for emphasising it.
I had a lot of problem with time constraints and underestimating my timing when I first started planning. I originally planned to use more software such as Adobe Flash (which I have used and learnt a bit about) and 3Ds Max or Maya (which I have not used before). I planned to learn more about the software I had not used and try and implicate those into my project but due to timing restrictions I was unable to and figure out a different way. I found that Adobe Photoshop was something I already knew but the two other software programs that I didn't have much experience in was Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premier which I knew I would use extensively, therefore I could only use my time to focus on them luckily finding Adobe Premier easy to use having being able to explore and figure out how it worked without needing many tutorials as I have had prior experience with other video editing software. Adobe After Effects was quickly learnt with watching the tutorials of the desired effects I required I using the knowledge I obtained and applying it to the software so I could work out how the basics of the software worked. In the end the final project became solely a movie and did not have any flash animation and I knew this was a sacrifice I had to make due to time constraints and organisation.
From this I have learnt that my organisation/planning and time management although has significantly improved from when I first started the course, needs to improve even more for the future and that I should not underestimate timing in general.
Backstory for the story of my final major project film
The idea for my final major project is to create a live action film with a bit of animation within about a battle between Vampires and Dragons. The idea for this stemmed when I was reflecting on my two previous briefs from Stage 2 of course. One brief was focused on creatures, Dragons and the other brief looked at Gothic horror, in particular Vampires. I made a video for my Gothic brief about a day walking vampire who has a monologue about how the vampiric race was hunted down by humankind and how he wants to bring revenge by taking the remaining hiding and surviving vampires to gain re control of the Earth and perform a huge hunt on humankind whilst regaining strength to eventually become the reigning dominant force on the planet.
The back story for the story in my final major project is that, in this story's universe Dragon's are the original creators of the universe and the universe exists due to their existence. Every atom and particle came from dragons. The Earth was formed by dragons and these dragons became the crust, the mantle and the core. Dragons had there own agendas and morals and therefore had different intentions. 'Good' dragons created humankind to inhabit Earth, 'Bad Dragons or fallen dragons' were dragons who were considered lower on the hierarchy due to their immoral or mischievous mindset. They created the humanoid creatures that were enemies to human kind such as vampires and werewolves etc as these were meant to be corrupted creations of humans, species of creatures that were almost a natural culling method to be used on humans. As human kind evolved into existence along with vampires, werewolves and other beings, dragons co existed. Certain humans looked up to them as gods and worshipped or respected them. In the East the dragons had a significant cultural impact. In this story's universe, two warring factions of vampires eventually become one to grow in strength and begin an empire that would eventually expand into the East. The empires of the East were guarded by dragons which the humans of the East respected/worshipped. The vampires had a long troublesome conquest in slaying these dragons and eventually wiping most of them out and causing others to flee and become dormant. Soon the vampires conquered and occupied some areas of the East. The battle between humans and other creatures such as vampires, werewolves etc had become a long going onslaught until finally in the modern day, vampires and other creatures were soon hunted to the near brink of extinction in a attempt for humans to win the upper hand at survival. The remaining vampires had to flee and live either blended in with the humans in bustling cities or out in the woods/countryside living off wild animals or livestock. Years pass to the future where one vengeful vampire (the main vampire) has had enough of being at the bottom of the hierarchy and plans to gather all remaining vampires for a mass hunt on humankind in an attempt to weaken there numbers and take over as the dominant species on the planet. After years of wars against humans and massacres the vampires number become stronger then ever. The lead vampire (the main vampire) separates vampires into different groups and assigns them different outposts all over the world. After years of separation, Speciation occurs as vampires evolve faster than humans therefore mutations are more likely to occur in their genes which causes different vampires in different outposts to have different physical features and powers to each other. In my final major project the story would be that the main vampire (the one in my video for the Gothic glitch in nine brief) becomes the alpha leader of a outpost of vampires situated in a large urban city. Over the years these vampires have become adapted to the city environment and know parkour/freerunning which makes it easier for them to traverse the city rooftops and environment. Being an alpha leader means he has the ability to turn into a gargoyle like creature but the strongest of it's kind in comparison to the vampires that rank below him. Due to many years of adaptation to the city, these vampires are the strongest of day walkers so are not affected by sunlight or pollution although these adaptations have reinforced physical changes in their look such as paler clammy skin, almost rotting in some areas in nature and dark sunk in eyes almost appearing dead like. As these vampires over watch their city outpost and try to defeat or turn the last remaining human rebels, dragons have re-awakened from their dormant state and the same dragons that had be hunted in the East centuries ago have now returned with full vengeance with the goal of reclaiming ruling ownership over the planet. This does not strike fear in the vampires due to the years of oppression from humankind, their hearts have become cold and immune. The vampires just viewed dragons as another obstacle in their path to world domination, a simple threat, another enemy to conquer.
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