3D S Max - Name

Here is the first video I've created and the first project of mine that I made in 3D S Max. I'm quite pleased with it! :D

Second Life.... ....

I've just been plodding around on my computer and found the "Second Life" icon on my desktop... having thought "I really should use that again for my blog work" and that's when i realised... I haven't been using it.

Asking myself why, you realise that to be honest, there's nothing that attractes you to it. Yes the world looks quite impressive, but the tireingly slow rendering, requirement of spending real monry to look good, and the complexity of navigating the world to find other users really is quite dull.

There's no real interaction, well, none worth mentioning anyway. It's very very boring as no one seems to talk on it and the program's constantly downloading the world and you never see a finished version... so all I can say is, Goodbye second life, and welcome to doing something productive with my time!

Gantt Chart

I've uploaded the Gantt chart to help me with my project work. According to this, I should be finished by the end of April, which will give me enough time if anything goes wrong, whilst keeping my work load at an average level.

However, things may have to be adjusted depending on how well the creation of my 3D avatar goes.

Britain's Got Talent

At the last minute, I was asked if I wanted to go to the Britain's Got Talent auditions as an audience member. Obviously, I couldn't resist the chance to see the recording of a real TV show.

We stood in the cold for 3 hours, but eventually got in, we were on the FRONT row, just behind the crew.

At the interval my brother's friend suggested I spoke to one of the producers (who were sitting next to the stage), I was a bit shy so she went for me, but then waved me over. I spoke to the executive producer of the show and she gave me an email address to send my CV into and I may end up with some work experience on X Factor or Britain's Got Talent as they usually use local people to film and help out with the show, how cool is that!!

Previous work

Here are two images I made a year or two ago that sum up who I am. I think they're both quite relevant and thought I would share it with you to see what kind of things I've worked on in the past.

Looking outside the box...

Here are a few ideas I've had for my showcase/box idea.

I love my original box idea, but that was just to play around with flash and see how it worked and how easy it was to create things. Now that I'm a bit more confident with it, I have generated some ideas that I think I could pull off fairly well.

Click the photos to enlarge and see what I've written more clearly.

My box - With button!

My Box - With button by ~sammarshall20 on deviantART

Look at my sexy box! lol! I've managed to create the box, with a working button! To say I had never used flash before I started at NTU, I think I'm doing incredibly well!

Love Film - Well I should do!

Doing a Media based degree and studying Media Studies ever since Year 10, when I was about 14, you'd think that I would have seen a lot of films and would be quite a big film buff.

That's totally not the case! Infact, I've seen less films than an average business man who works around the clock.

In fact, it's so bad, I havent even seen some basic films such as the Matrix, Bambi, American Pie, Austin Powers, Saw and Wallace and Grommit.

So I've decided to start a New Year resolution, to watch more films!! And to do this, i've signed up the LoveFilm.com. I figured that on their basic package, you get 2 films a month for about £4. As I'm quite a busy person, I'll start with just 2 a month untill I see how I go.

I've just received Run Fat Boy Run and watch that this evening. I thought the film was really interesting to see a breakdown of a marriage and being stud up at the alter from the male point of view and why men react in the way they do. It was also interesting to see him represented as the average joe, or someone who we can all relate to by having determination, but cutting out after a while.

All in all, the film was a nice one to watch with a very light hearted comedy streek going through it, well worth a watch for the men out there who could use a bit of a lift or a chick-flick style, but aimed at the guys.

My Box - Flash Creation

Flash Box by ~sammarshall20 on deviantART

Here is the beginning of my flash box. My next step is to learn how to create a button so the box opens, only when you click the handle (which i also need to create!)

But this is just so show the simple idea I have so far.

As you can see, I took the same sort of design of the box I found on google in the post below, but I've built this box entirely myself in Photoshop and implemented it into flash. I prefer to frontal view and I think it will help me a lot when it comes to putting virtual objects inside it.

My box and Moodboard

I'm very excited to reveal my initial ideas for my box!

The photo above shows the box closed, partialy open, and then fully open. I've created this on photoshop using various shading effects and an image of the box on Google.

The box is actually perfect, it has the use of brown colours, straight lines and a modern design, which is exactly the style of design I aspire too.

The images next to it are just a sample of things I like and hopefully i'll be implementing these images into the box in one way or another.

I also know what elements I'm going to have and the story they will tell.

At the moment I have:

3D Avatar - Myself as I am now.

Audio/Visual - A 30 minute extract of a radio show I did when I was involved with DJing online.

Logo - This is be replacing the logo already on the box, to create my own personal identity on the outside of the box.

MY CHOICE (Audio/visual) - A music video I shot when I used to make and sell music a few years ago.

MY CHOICE (Unknown) - Possibly an advertisement of myself, still not sure about this yet.

Mind-Map of Myself

To help me understand what I actually like in life, and what does things for me in terms of interests, favourite aspects and design, I created this very handy, colour-sectioned mind-map to help when designing aspects of my box.

Audio/Visual Identities Idea

These three photos are just an idea for the kind of shots and angles I would use for the "Lies" video. I think the angles work well, considering the tight space in the bathroom and the possitioning of the video camera will be quite difficult.

In the first photo, I would be inside the shower cubical 'flipping out' and singing along to the song. This is the same with the 3rd photo. The water would gradually turn on and soak me, whilst i'm wearing all my clothes.

The 2nd photo shows just the shower head. The idea is that there will be a close up of the shower head and the water coming out in slow motion, and then cutting to shot 3 where i'll slowly be getting wet, in time with the music also.

For reference, the song is available to hear here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=byPmV-Zbmmk

Identity Problems!

Recently, I've found it fairly difficult to understand who I am in terms of identity. I read a bit on Wikipedia about self-assessment and that if you say "I am lazy", this is self-assessment. Basicly, you're saying that you're lazy, where as if you said "I am tired" it's more of a self-concept.

I think one of the hardest things is discovering who you are in terms of yourself. What do you like to do, what is it that makes you you, why do you do certain things, what makes you do those things and what's your reason for doing it that way. These things I get very confused about, I simply can't get my head around them to a certain extent.

Therefore, I feel as if this, in a way, is a self-assessment and the result is that I get confused about more metaphorical or non-literal issues. So I want to reflect this through my work.

My first idea for an audio/visual aspect is to make a music video of my self to the song "Lies" by McFly. I was thinking of reflecting it to the world of advertising (an area im very interested and baffled by) to make it more dynamic, along side shots of me 'flipping out' with the confusion and lies that's created by advertising to a certain extent.

(I've never been good at putting my thoughts into words! ha)

Speed Limiting Cars

A car has been developed that has an on-board computer system to slow down the speed of a car if it goes over the speed limit.

Sounds like a good idea? Yes! It will help save lives by putting on the break if necessary and warning of approaching speed limits.

However, would any car manufacturing company be stupid enough to adopt the technology in all their cars? Stupid for them as they would loose millions, especially from sporting enthusiasts. Not stupid, as the NHS will be spending a lot less money looking after those involved in car crashed.

It's a toughy!