Argh! I'm a computer idiot!!!

Last week went a really long way to making me feel that I'm not as clever as I thought I was.  Not very clever at all, in fact, and shockingly computer illiterate.

The second task to be done in Blender was to create a puddle in a street.  We had a set of instructions to follow and tutor Chris Hughes showed us how easy it is (if you know what you're doing) by creating a perfectly authentic-looking puddle with fabulous reflections in about 10 minutes.  The thing is to get an image of a paved or cobbled street taken from above, then a nice reflective image of a street at night above to wrap around it, and finally to create the puddle in photoshop with black patches on the street, then to add reflectivity.   It was a bit of a torturous ordeal, but in the end I created this:

Not a perfect representation of a puddle, but I'm very proud of it considering the 

hard work that went in to creating it!

Meanwhile back in the graphics class, we'd reached the stage of actually getting our designs turned into posters via photoshop.  And once again my computer illiteracy let me down.

By the end of the day my fellow students were producing wonderful designs and I was struggling with the most basic photoshop commands and had so many confusing layers to my unfinished and messy-looking poster that I felt quite miserable.  I left the class promising tutor Chris Headleand that I would download 'gimp' a free graphics programme similar to photoshop.

Gimp proved to be just as nonsensical to me, but I battled on with my ten-year-old son advising me and was half-way to completing a poster when I lost my layers toolbar and was unable to get it back whatever I tried so in the end gave it up til the next lesson.  

The next week we had the fun task of turning images of ourselves taken in the TV studio against the green screen into classic fairy tale film posters.  Again I struggled, but stayed at college late, determined to at least accomplish this task.  At last I was getting the hang of photoshop, little by little.  When I discovered I could download a 30 day free trial there was no stopping me.  I was awake til 3am working on this:

Snow White starring Liz Hutchinson with a fabulous body - (are those silicon breasts?!)

Looking back on the things I have produced this week it doesn't seem so bad, but I've been in tears of frustration because of my own inadequacies, and I've felt like throwing in the towel and abandoning ship more than ever before. It seems I'm an awfully slow learner.  I'm not sure if that's my maturity or the fact that I've never been really fast at learning new things, and not getting my head around the technology has been so very frustrating. 

 But I haven't given up, and I'm trying really hard not to get stressed or upset , because getting emotional is definitely a hindrance to learning,

Moving on with web design

Well, I can report that I'm still almost as confused by the language behind websites, but - importantly - NOT QUITE!  We've now got to the stage of creating the home page of our chosen sites.  I'm using a really great picture taken by a professional photographer a few weeks ago, and this will form the basis of my index page.  As usual I'm struggling to learn another new bit of software - Hype http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xys5JDb2CBw, but I have managed to produce this so far and I haven't torn all  my hair out yet...

Aaron at the helm with the Creative Tech class of 2012 behind in the new TV studio

Meanwhile in Radio Branwen we've been out on the streets and around the college collecting peoples' views on what they'd like to hear on the radio when Radio Harlech officially gets it's license this summer.  I really enjoyed doing this, even though it took a while for me to realise which was the correct button to record and which to pause - (hence a lot of us chatting and not many vox pops!).  It's just a case of having the balls to walk up to people and ask the question in a friendly way and recording the replies.

We've also been brushing up on interviews.  We paired off and wrote 10 or so questions to ask each other in a recorded interview which should be 5 minutes long after editing.  I was lucky enough to get Laura who had plenty to say in reply to my questions which I based around her interest in animation films, and I look forward to editing the recording.

Trying to love Web Design....

Well, one thing I've definitely learned from this module is that I don't want to be a web designer.  I was happier before I had any understanding of the language of the internet and HTML was just a mistake incurred when I occasionally clicked in the wrong spot on a page and the page was replaced with reams of nonsensical code involving lots of pointy brackets.

 And as for CSS or cascading style sheets as I now know them... more complicated code telling the HTML how to look, where to be, what colour to be and generally how to look pretty, this time in curly brackets with a whole new set of rules.  It all adds up to a bit of a brain-ache for me, but slowly I'm starting to understand a bit of the 'behind the scenes' stuff of web pages.

I've chosen to make my website on the new TV studio at Coleg Harlech.  It is an exciting project and I would like to get involved and use the facility for filming and editing stuff for broadcasting.  I've looked at other local TV stations' websites and assessed what I like and am not so keen on.  I've roughly sketched out how I'd like the site, which will contain 5 pages, to look.  I've devised a questionnaire which I've handed out to Chris Headleand and Ian McNeil, and from their replies I'll write the brief.

Luckily we've got til the end of term to complete this, so hopefully it will become clearer to me as we carry on.

Well into the new term, and I've been feeling quite awash with new, difficult, technical stuff that I'm having to manfully grapple with.  To begin with... good old photoshop!  Will I ever get the hang?

The Digital Graphic Design module has so far been a real pleasure.

I've chosen to focus on my own home-made cake company (which doesn't actually exist).  By asking myself a number of questions using a design brief sheet, I have come up with quite a comprehensive brief, done lots of research to arrive at my design specification, had the enormous treat of creating my first ever mood board, and am now at the stage of concept development, ie sketching ideas of how I would like the final piece to look.



The Joy of moodboards...




My initial sketches took place at 2.30am on Monday morning, not being able to sleep I found myself thinking about the project, so grabbed a pencil and paper and sat up in bed sketching my thoughts out because I knew I'd never remember them in the morning!

To counteract this rather pleasurable module there are the horrors of Blender, a 3D modelling programme which is almost certainly not as bad as I think it is.  I'm finding it really hard to get my head around, in spite of the endless patience of Chris Hughes, our tutor.  I will be surprised if I manage to get a grip of this in one term, but it's possible I suppose.  It feels a bit like maths and I seem to have a brain blockage to anything that is too mathematical-seeming but I will persevere and do my best to get it.

My wonky wind turbine created in Blender

And on to the radio module....

Radio work is always fun.  So far we've written, recorded and edited some news, and today wrote and transmitted a live 20 minute programme.  This went really well for everyone.  It was great to have Tutor Trevor there to support us and make sure no one made any major cock-ups.

End of term whoopings!

Hooray!  Handed it all in!  It's over for this term and what a ride it's been.  I've learned more than I could have imagined about theatre lighting, I've  blogged, tweeted, made a website, managed to use an ipod with my sausagey fingers to make an animation,  been wheeled about on a 20 foot vertical ladder, even sang on my own in a recording studio, and spent a whole term making a film which took more than 20 hours to edit.  And here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52F0-HL0x1w&context=C41420eaADvjVQa1PpcFNsK2IZqfAnUZXiz5dTAIcPjzpNJeCTY-U=

Looking forward to decorating my bathroom and gardening for a few weeks. :)

Busy busy busy

With less than a week to go before our first four modules are assessed it's a busy time for us Creative Tech students.  My brain is so full of stuff I wake up thinking about what I should be doing to improve my projects and last night I actually awoke in the middle of the night and had to grab a piece of paper and pen and scrawl some ideas down in case I'd forgotten them in the morning.

We had our last theatre project on Thursday which was to choose a piece of music and light it up on stage.  I spent a late night getting lost in You Tube and had a bit of a realisation about how it's possible to spend so much time there, and still didn't have a choice, but enjoyed wandering among all that fab music.  In the end I went for a Moby track which I'm fond of and could envisage how to light it.  Only had half an hour to programme all the different lighting states into the desk, but just about managed it and lit up "Why does my Heart Feel so Bad?"   It's true you  feel a bit like God as you change the look of the stage at the flick of a switch.  Unfortunately didn't have time to film the results.  Bummer.


Monday in the recording studio luckily saw a great bunch of musicians coming together and we had the chance to mic them up and record them.   After an awfully brave attempt at singing over an excellent recording of 'The House of The Rising Sun', I need to edit it (if I can bear to listen to it again!) and write up my experiences. I do not, however, need to ever sing into a microphone alone again.  That personal hurdle is over.

There is... a house.... blah blah blah!

Fantastically I have actually finished my stop motion animation.  It took hours and hours of snipping out bits of black paper, photographing with 'I can animate' and editing with 'imovie' on the ipod.  Major effort for very short (just over 1 minute in total) unpolished and unprofessional bit of animation.  Gives me some idea of the incredible work of real animators and film-makers.  Here is the tale of Clarissa:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBexAs6FoZs&feature=g-upl&context=G25d3b4dAUAAAAAAABAA


And on to the suspense film project... bit of a disaster unless I can get a bit more footage.  Planning to go to my actress and either beg or offer to make her lots of cakes for just a half hour more of filming... This module has been so much more challenging than I had envisaged, which is ok as long as I've learned from it so that next time I choose something achievable.

All in all I'll be glad to be blogging next week when it's all over. :)

4 Yorkshiremen (with varying regional accents), and a nice stop motion example

An exercise in recording in the studio and editing with Logic software on apple macs.  Worra lorra fun it was :-)

http://audioboo.fm/boos/703184-4-yorkshiremen

Starring Phil, Aaron, Owain and myself with sound engineers Sean and Kris, and edited by moi.

Getting on with our film projects... I've hit a bit of a blank wall with mine, after injecting some suspense back into the script and getting fairly inspired, my actress has run out of steam.  Can't say I blame her, it has turned into a far bigger, lengthy and more hassley beast than the little favour I originally asked of her.  Not sure where things are going on that front at the moment.  May have to invent Plan B...

Stop motion animations are becoming fun.  Have decided to create a trailer for my my monomyth story using silhouette cut-outs, and have begun messily snipping away at black paper and creating my characters.  It's going to be a lengthy process with zillions of pictures to be taken to create even a few minutes of footage. 

An nice example of the sort of thing I'd like to create: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYr2WYsSmaI


Been given a lovely  practical assignment for the theatre: Choose a piece of music 2 or 3 minutes long, and light it creatively.  Decide where the lighting cues will be, write them out with timings, use a basic lighting rig with plenty of colours and plot it into the lighting desk and light up the stage with your chosen tune.  How fabulous!  Now, what to choose....?