Theory Into Practice 8, 9, 10 and 12

 8

Call of Duty 4:This is the fourth title in the Call of Duty series. The series has been very well received with a huge fan following. The original games were set in World War 2 but this game has been set in the modern warfare age. The producer decided to do make the move to modern warfare because the video game market was over crowded with world war 2 first person shooters. They decided to keep all the traits that the series had but they added a new modern flare to it while adding new things as-well. They made it appeal to the audience by keeping the things that made the Call of Duty series what it is.

 Transformers: This is a film based on the very popular series of toys that started off as simple vehicles, then they would transform into robots. The film stays true to the toys with all the characters that we recognise from the toys. They made it appeal because they kept it as close to the toys and the cartoon series as possible, including all of our favourite characters. It also appeals to sci-fi buffs as it contains alot of breath taking CG.

 9

Saving Private Ryan: There are many codes that appear in Saving Private Ryan but the one I have chosen is from the start of the film where the men are trying to take the beach-head. Captain Miller finally reaches the beach but he is shell-shocked, the camera then goes into a first person viewpoint. This viewpoint is an example of a technical code as it has become the main character. When it is in this viewpoint we actually feel shell-shocked and we see all the carnage that is going on around us. There are also many symbolic codes in Saving Private Ryan, one of the main codes is the use of music in the film. They use music to enhance the mood of the situation or scene. For example, if they were in some sort of danger, they would use a fast paced, sinister type of music. They also have many historical codes. For example the historically accurate environments and sets that they use in the film. An example of this would be the opening scene of the Normandy landings, many veterans of the landing have said that it was almost exactly the same as it is shown in the film.

10

Films: Some films use subtitles to tell us where the scene is set. The font will be different if the film is for example an action movie. If it was an action movie then the type would be very blocky and serious. But if it was say an historic film then the type would be from that period.

TV: Subtitles in a TV show would have to get across the mood of the scene or situation. For example, if there was an argument and there was shouting then the subtitle might use alot of exclamation marks and capital letters to get across that it is an argument.

12

Here is an example of a complaint from an anonymous man to the Press Complaints Company, “A man complained to the Press Complaints Commission that a video published on the Northwich Guardian website on 14 July headlined “Teenagers torch moving train” and an article accompanied by images from the video published on 18 July headlined “YOBS ON FILM” identified his fifteen-year-old son in breach of Clause 6 (Children) of the Code”. This complaint was not upheld sue to the fact that the website that the video was posted on was a video-sharing website and was uploaded by the children themselves. Therefor they were no in any breach of clause.

Here is another complaint from a woman to the Press Complaints Company, “A woman complained to the Press Complaints Commission that an article, published in the Wigan Observer on 29th May headlined “Teacher found electrocuted” contained excessive detail about a death by suicide in breach of Clause 5 (Intrusion into grief or shock) of the Code”. The complaint was upheld because even though it was an accurate report of the inquest, the story caused the family distress and discomfort. 

Audience Feedback

Producers want feedback that can help them to increase the appeal of thier product. They can get feedback in a number of ways:

Focus Groups – These are made up of a group of representatives of the target audience.

Audience panels – Representatives who give feedback on a regular basis.

Trialling and Testing – Sample of the product would begiven to an audience and they would give feedback.

Reviews – Ordinary people who review a product for a magazine, newspaper or website. There are also professional reviewers that provide the cruellest feedback.

Complaints – Complaints can be sent direct from the audience or it can go through a complaint centre like Ofcom or ASA.

Light Mapping

A lightmap is a light data structure that is used in 3D games engines which contains the brightness of all the surfaces in the enviroment. Quake was the first game to use light mapping for speed rendering so that the floors did not look distorted.

Codes and Conventions

Codes

Codes are signs that have a meaning, they can be distinguished into 2 catgories – technical and symbolic.

Technical – Techinical is the way equipment is used to tell a story. For example, the way a video camera is used in film.

Symbolic – Symbolic codes show what we can’t see. For example, a characters actions reflect the way the character is feeling.

But some codes fit both technicle and symbolic. For example, music falls into both technical and symbolic.

Conventions

Coventios are the generally accepted ways of doing something. There are general conventions in any medium, such as the interviewee quotes in a print article, but conventions are also genre specific.

How codes and conventions apply in media studies

Codes and conventions are used in the study of genre – it’s not enough just to say how the technical code is used such as how a camera is used, without saying how it is conventionally used in a genre.

YSP Shots Walkthrough

Shot 1: The first shot is a chase shot which shows Joe running down a hill towards a statue and myself following. I increased the speed of the shot to make it seem more comical. I chose a running fade which instead of fading in and out it fades directly from one shot to the other.

Shot 2: Shot 2 is another shot of Joe but this time he has his arms flailing and he’s is running towards some children, I am briefly seen in the shot walking. Again I chose to speed up the shot to make it look funnier. The transition that I chose this time is what I like to call a burn transition which gives the illusion that the first shot has burns away to reveal the second.

Shot 3: The third shots show Joe performing to the camera. It is a very humorous performs of Joe lifting a branch off the ground pretending that it is very heavy. Once again I have sped up the shot to make it seem even more humorous than it already is. The transition I have used shows the first shot break into small dots which eventually disappear to reveal the next shot.

Shot 4: Shot 4 begins with me climbing into a statue and pretending to get stuck, hearing this Joe tries to get me out in a comical way. We then continue to talk about the sculpture. Just like the previous shots the speed has been increased. The transition for this shot is just a simple fade to black transition.

Shot 5: Shot 5 shows a simple zoom onto a sculpture before panning and fading. The speed of this shot was kept the same as it didn’t need any comical value. The transition is the same as the previous dot transition which the shot breaks into small dots which disappear showing the next shot.

Shot 6: This shot show myself doing a funny walk. The speed of the shot was kept the same because it would have been too short if the speed was increased. Again the transition is just a simple fade to black.

Shot 7:The seventh shot shows a still shot with a slight  zoom on a sculpture of a face. The speed has been kept the same as it did not need to be increased. The transition was just a simple fade to white.

Shot 8: Shot 8 shows an upward pan on a sculpture to reveal it’s face. The speed has been kept the same as it did not need to be increased. The transition was what I like to call the checkerboard transition where the look of a checkerboard cuts out the existing shot to reveal the new one.

Shot 9: This shot shows a sculpture then it zooms out and pans left. The speed has also been kept the same here. The transition is just a simple fade to black which lead into the text that follows.

Text: The text simple says “Well That Was Weird”. I chose this because it will add to the humor of the video.

Shot 10: Shot 10 is the final shot, it shows myself, Joe and Matt walking along a path with the words “Yorkshire Sculpture Park” appearing underneath. The speed of the shot has been increased considerably to end the video. The video ends on a simple fade to black.

Music: The piece of music that I have chosen is called “Improper Dancing” by Electric Six. I chose this particular piece because I felt that it also help the video to be more humorous.

Lighting

API stands for Application Programming Interface, API is a source code interface which is used by operating systems or libraries to supports request for services to be made of it by computer programs. To simplify that an API is a piece of software that sits between the programmer and a program. The program comes already set up with functions but it needs some more code to be entered to perform those functions. To get the functions to work the programmer types the code into the API which places it into the programme which then performs the task. Here are some examples of API’s, OpenGL, DirectX, Google Maps API, Youtube API and MediaWiki API.

 Here is an example of some API coding.

OpenGL offers 3 forms of lighting. The first is per polygon lighting the second is per vertex lighting and the third is per pixel lighting. In vertex lighting you determine how many polygons are touching one of the vertex’s, them take the mean of all the polygons orientations which we call the normal and assign the normal to the vertex.

The advantage of vertex lighting is that the hardware will help complete the task faster by using hardware transform and lighting (T&L). The disadvantages of this is that shadowing will not be produced on the model. For example, both arms on the model will be lit the same way, even if the light is on the right side of the model, the left arm will be lit the same and no body shadow will be cast.

Shaders are a graphic resource that are used to render graphical objects in a 3D world. The shader is actually a part of the renderer, which is used to calculate the colour of an object.

Gouraud is a method of shading that is used to differ the effects of light and colour on a 3D object. Gouraud is used to smooth lighting across low-polygon object without the heavy computational requirements used by calculating the light for each pixel.

Phond shading is a layered version of shading. It begins with an ambient, it then adds a diffuse and specular. This reveals the fully lit 3D model.

I would use the phong method as it is an easier method in my opinion.

Here is an example of some shading.

YSP Video Plan

I would like the mood of the video to be a documentary that has comedic value. I’d rather that it not be too serious because it would be boring to watch. I hope to film a large amount of shots so that there is more choice in what goes into the final cut.

I would like alot of chase shots as we walk from statue to statue and some mid shots as we talk about each statue. I would also like to have mid shots for the intro and also the outro.

After researching the sculpture park, I have seen that it contains many large statues that will make great focal points as we move around the park. There is also a few indoor areas which may contain piece which could be of some interest. I also found out that statues created by Henry Moore are on show there so it will probably be a good idea to research him to learn more about him and his work.

The planning will be very important for the video to be completed on time. We will need to have the ruff cut completed within the first couple of editing sessions. Then we will have to clean up the editing and add effects to the video. Finally we will have to publish it and create the director commentary.

Anti-Aliasing

Anti-Aliasing is where the 3D card takes a look at what has been rendered and blurs the edges of the polygons to get rid of jagged pixel edges.

There are 2 ways for the 3D card to generate anti-aliasing images. The first approach is at the individual polygon level, which requires you to render the polygon from back to front of the view, so that each polygon can blend with what’s behind it. The second approach is where you scale the whole frame to a much larger resolution than it will be displayed at, then when you scale the image down the sharp edges tend to be blended away in the scaling.

 The good thing about the first approach is that it is very high quality, the bad thing about this method is that of you render out of order you will end up with some sort of strange effects. The good thing about the second second approach is that it is alot easier to use but you need alot of memory bandwidth and a large memory footprint.