Interactivity

we have now been given the second project brief which focuses on the idea of interactivity, there are many ways that new digital media can be interactive for example the Nintendo wii and its motion sensor controls. as i primarily focus on film making i need to come up with clever ideas that will captivate the audience whilst utilising their skills etc.

In a previous post i mentioned the idea of making a 3D film that uses the red & blue 'anaglyph' glasses, the concept of these glasses is that it allows the viewer to be fully immersed in the movie. I also draw inspiration from theme park attractions like 'Pirates 4D' at Thorpe Park and 'Honey I Shrunk The Audience' at the Epcot centre in Orlando Florida. These attractions are effectively short films with a running time of around 15-25 minutes, housed in an auditorium/cinema and require the use of 3D glasses but the difference in these rides is that they have other aspects going on around you that effect your other senses.

A good example is that on the 'Honey I Shrunk The Audience' attraction there is a part when on screen, hundreds of rats are accidently set loose towards the audience. The audience get more involved in this sequenece in two ways, the first is that in viewing the scene in 3D they feel like they are actually there, the second is that sensors & wind machines strategically placed on the floor activate so it feels like all the rats are running right by your feet which effectively adds a fourth dimension to the attraction. It is tempting to consider making an interactive experience like these rides but it would take a considerable amount of time & money to create and will most likely be a lot of hard work, it is however definetly worth investigating.

There is also the task of creating the 3D film and seperating the colour fields to red & blue, I have experimented with making a 3D anaglyph film in the past but only used footage shot from a single camera, ideally you need to use two cameras (placed on a board) alligned exactly with each other with a marginal gap between them. Then through the wonders of editing you can set about making the images red & blue, there is also an effect called '3D Glasses' on after effects. on the gadget show this week they were testing a webcam that had two lenses with a marginal gap between them which was built for the making of 3D films so it may be worth researching that item.

Four Corners Animation

Here is a cool animation that a friend of mine from the northbrook college days made, Four Corners.



Made by Aaron Forster

Third Dimension

We have just started to think about possible dissertation ideas today and initially i could not think of anything to build upon the obvious 'film' choice however with the upcoming interactivity project about to begin i would possibly like to tie this up with my main idea for that particular project...3D film.

3D movies have seen a massive resurgence in recent years with big films like 'Beowulf' & 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' making a large amount of money in the box office and having seen the latter in 3D was pretty impressive. What is more important however is the fact that many upcoming movies are being made with 3D as a top priority, big films include 'Toy Story 3' & James Cameron's 'Avatar' and are gaining a huge amount of audience anticipation.

Other elements i would like to investigate is that a lot of recent films have had a large majority of scenes filmed for IMAX cinemas, when 'The Dark Knight' came out this summer a lot was made in the promotion about the IMAX sequences and actually managed to help the IMAX company trim its third quarter financial loss. IMAX and 3D also go hand-in-hand very well with 3D films like 'The Polar Express' making almost half its profits from the format and is generally regarded as an important cinematic landmark and one of the biggest movies of all time if seen as its film makers intended in 3D IMAX.

My initial idea for the interactivity project was alway to make an engaging audience-involved movie in 3D anaglyph vision (Blue&Red) and have the audience members wearing the colour corresponding glasses.

A design for life

I have thinking of a valid solution to my idea of how social network sites like facebook & 2nd life will evolve in the future. I envision a future in which everybody can literally connect themselves to the computer/internet and experience the world wide web in a kind of virtual reality situation, this idea has been shown before in the television show 'Futurama' which I will show a clip of in my documentary. This idea of virtual reality headsets/suits is an interesting concept which was one of the main focuses of the iraq war exhibition we visited today, in the display we were shown virtual footage of a typical battle/skirmish/patrol which played out very much like a video game but we were also shown that soldiers in the US army wear virtual reality helmets so they can really get involved in the process.

Back to my design future idea, i would like to be able to connect to the internet with the ability to actually see people online etc. i would show this on my documentary by including a short promo of two people talking to each other but because it is online in virtual reality these two people are actually in two seperate countries, when the conversation is finished the two people log out (shown on screen) and dissapear (via the use of a clever transistion).

Over the years i have made several documentary projects regarding digital media phenomenons, here they are in full Youtube Glory.



Bidding For eBay (Part 1)



Bidding For eBay (Part 2)



Youtube: Under Review "The Inner Tube"



Digital Music: Under Review "Download This"



Killer Videogames (Part 1)



Killer Videogames (Part 2)



Killer Videogames (Part 3)

Hope You Enjoy, To see the rest of my films please visit my Youtube page
http://uk.youtube.com/user/r7onyr

Whats the big idea!

Ok so there has been a bit of criticism regarding this blog and to be honest i can understand why, this is the first blog I have ever attempted and to be perfectly honest it really isn't my cup of tea. Blogging reminds me of those people who avidly talk into their dictaphones posting numbered idea logs which is a concept i just can't get my head round but I am willing to put a bit more effort in and try and rescue this sinking ship by upping the post quota alright.

A big concern was that i have not explained my chosen idea so i will convey that now, my project primarily focuses on the idea of social networking and how nowadays it takes over a large part of our life and is effectively eliminating the art of face to face conversation. I am planning a short documentary effectively 10 minutes in length on this subject matter including various elements surrounding it, these element will focus on the following...

-The origin of social networking: including email, text messaging replacing phone calls, chat rooms, online dating and lastly social networking websites such as myspace and facebook

-The main use's of social networking today: Various videogame consoles use social networking (for example Nintendo DS using the touchscreen to send personal messages in a fun way) The upcoming launch of Playstation Home (an interactive social area like 2nd life, the sims etc.)

-Facebook: The whole aspect of this internet phenomenon including the ways in which people can spy on others and learn email addresses/phone+mobile numbers/home addresses etc.
Facebook is quite badly designed when it comes down to privacy

-criticism: Social networking nightmares include...The closing down of msn chat rooms due to paedophile fears, the bluetooth 'Toothing' craze and facebook in the press with murders being committed because of the site etc.

The Future: What does the future hold for facebook/social networking, My impression of the future and the future shown by current media e.g. Futurama, Dave Chappelle internet skit etc.

Hopefully this should clear up any concerns and i hope you are looking forward to seeing my documentary.

Regards

Open to other subjects

I know this blog is primarily meant to be about the DMD course and film making but i'm also going to start adding various film, television & music reviews/news etc.

Whats up doc?

work has started to progress on ye olde documentary which is good news, I initially thought that i could make a short 5-6 minute doc but it could realistically be around the 10 -12 minute mark.

still trying to get used to this blogging malarkey but as Homer Simpson once said...
"If I can say a few words...i'd be a better public speaker"

City College

Hello,

I have just started a course at city college in brighton

I am studying Digital Media Design (BA Top up)

(this is why i have created this blog)

Introduction

Ok, never done anything like this before so here we go...

Welcome to the Samco Films Blog

Links:

www.freewebs.com/samcofilms