Poster

Here's the poster:




(source file:
http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~04008617/a/Toshop.psd )

The Trailer: Fivaday

Here is the trailer:
(Uploaded on youtube)



enjoy!

Tools used: nothing illegal

I used legal software to implement this project.

Adobe Premiere, Photoshop licensed to Heriot-Watt University.
Blender 2.43(for the 3d authoring, compositing): free ware
The Gimp: free ware
Virtual Dub: free ware
Image shack (to host the images): free
Blogspot: to store the digital diary: free
Youtube: to upload the low quality version of the Video: free
Roxio burner for burning the media: Licensed to Heriot-Twatt University

Statement: original and adaptation

All piece of arts are inspired by something or someone at some point. That story called FIVADAY has been inspired by 2006's context of healthy living...Especially thanks (or due to...) an old female flatmate totally ridiculous on eating healthy and organic... that natural freak remember me of some kind of dictatorship...
That is why Gingerboy has to fight for his life but also for saving his world from the vegetables...


Then the story would imply combat scene inspired by matrix, star wars... The story line is pretty similar: a character that does not know he is special at first, that will fight the nasty and save his world...
The actual characteristics of Gingerboy are of course based on the Incredible HULK (the old serie with D.Banner not that horrible movie in the cinema): when you get him angry, GROOAAA he grows and GROOOWS!!
The remaining characters Evil Karot, Evil tomatoe, cereal bar, evil Peas...are just inspire from all nasty in all movies... With basic personality like betrayal from Cereal, racism,hate, personal greed...
The music is from Nirvana...simply because I had only that on hand while doing the audio!
The poster is inspired from Hollywood-type movies advertising...

The calendar...draft

Very Low fidelity Gant Chart...

As I based the project time line on paper, I reproduce an overview of the tasks' repartition during theses 9 weeks of project life cycle.

The calendar would be better if some tools like Microsoft Visio or only Word or MS Project were accessible when doing it...Unfortunately the only resource I had was an old computer with an old Linux...and The Gimp! (open source alternative to Photoshop).

It is missing the hours allocated per tasks...but its stated on each tasks description...

Grrooaaarr

Im Like HULK!
I become greeen and greeeen!!!!
GROAAAR!!

this Old computer Keeps BUGGING!! I could'nt continue to upload my papers for the Design Diary until now!!!
for the record I have lost again 5 hours of attempts to make it switch on from yesterday until now: thursday 3.46 pm...where the connection seems to establish fine and it works...!!!

Problems, problems: how to lose time!

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This post contains a list of all the problems encountered, how they affect the diary and how they have been fixed.

- Shooting: the cook forgot to wear gloves... No consequences on the project

- Editing: minor issues... fixed thanks to online tutorials. Major problem with resources detailed on the next list's elements.

- Audio: audio encoded lost. Voice maker not available anymore: had to find an emergency substitute. No access to a microphone at this stage... therefore low quality version of Audio used to finish the audio parts missing. important consequences on the quality.... might confuse the public: why the voice changes?

-3D compositing: (in order to create the actors) time consuming tasks. Rendering a 7seconds clips took two hours in low quality. Creating proper interaction as if its in the video require the exact position of the elements in the video and a very concise animation.... have been replaced by 3D images from the 3D file instead of animating everything. Important consequences: took important time resources.

General problems:
- Lack of resources: no personal microphone, no personal computer, no camera... make the work harder, Dependant to others resources.
- Hard access to university campus: far from home.
- On campus: concentration problem when other users are playing Unreal.
- No access to vision: erm...wee problem with the fees: I got banned!
- problem with burning a DVD: some files got corrupted even thought the burning was stated successful?

3D Compositing: the most time consuming task! (approx.60 hours spent)

Even thought it was not required by the assignment instructions, the story FIVADAY required to use 3D characters. Also as this module aimed to develop personal objectives, I chose to do some 3D scene to integrate into the main video.

Of course it requires loads of different skills from 3D modeling, Texturing, to Animation. Also it is required to be able to use advance special effects like Chroma Keying to integrate the 3D video into the main one.

After many issues the time allocated for theses 3D tasks have been importantly reduced. it was planned to do a succession of short "matrix-like" action scenes with the main characters Gingerboy and Karot in order to show that theses are enemies.

Basically it takes a lot of time to produce a realistic compositing effect. For example the combat scene with Gingerboy and the Karot would have required to reproduce the proper angle of the plane they should be in the real world (the kitchen table) and to adapt it in the 3D animating software. Then to produce the same lighting before importing the video to Premiere and try a proper keying to get rid of the unwanted 3D background! After that it would have been necessary to add some shadows but the keying would delete them....

For all theses reasons the project has been limited to the video and a small compositing effect. The 3d characters have been created but will remain unused due to the deadline approaching fast.Evil Tomatoe

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Evil Karot can move: here his movements are "snake-like" to show he is evil

Evil Tomatoes "hairs" can move as well: it gives him life

The structure of evil Karot: his bones

The Evil Karot being created, textured, modeled, rendered...

a low quality render of the cookie jar scene: Gingerboy is captured by the veggies

The Ginberboy in production in a cookie jar

To conclude, this 3D characters are important for the story and produce an interesting result of mixing reality and 3D characters.
It is something I wanted to have in my portfolio, and also it gave me a good overview on special effects, multimedia and video production!

Editing with Adobe Premiere (10 hours spent)

The editing consist in several operations to produce the final video.
This tasks is strongly dependent on the resources you have:
the main problems encountered here were that the audio files have been corrupted while burning them into a DVD: as a result, when trying to import them from Heriot Watt computer, they were not possible to reuse.
it was not even possible to get them as the actor that did the voice was not available anymore in the short time that was remaining for finishing the project... Therefore half of the voice have been made "in emergency" by someone else... The result produce a lack of credibility and the public might wonder why the voice over changes...

That event prove how complex it can be to produce a video if you don't have all the required equipment: the whole project become dependent of too many variables!

Shooting the Movie: approximatively 2 hours

Shooting the movie have been relatively easy, as the trailer did not require to shot in different locations.
Thanks to Johnny's camera we have shot the whole scene in his kitchen.
We had access to all the ressources needed, the "props" (cooking ingredients, tools...) and the batteries for the camera, the lamps for the lighting...

The only problem we realized afterward was a small mistake: when the cooker take the tray back from the oven, it should be hot and therefore required some gloves for the cook not to burn his hands.

Storyboards: 3hours included modifications

This is the storyboards that have been used for the story.

The Story: inspired after days...

Fivaday

R E L E A S E i N F O
>
> TiTLE......Fivaday
> YEAR....... 2007 Action /Science Fiction
> RUNTiME.... nearly 3 minutes
> STORE DATE.[ March 13, 2007
> iMDB RATE..[ 12 year old compliant
> AUDiO......[ MP3 48000Hz 112 kb/s CBR (2 chnls)
> ViDEO......[ 749 kbps DV AVI 25 FPS
> RESOLUTiON 800*600
> SUBS.......[ None
> FiLES......[ 1
> SiZE.......[ 686 MB
> SOURCE.....[ NTSC DVD
>
> N O T E S
>
> COUNTRY: UK
> DIRECTOR: Jean-Seb
> SCREENWRITER: Jean-Seb
> ORIGINAL MUSIC: Nirvana
> CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jean-Seb helped by Johnny
> CAST: PaGingerboy, Karot, Evil Tomatoe, Pee, Cereal Man, Cooker, the Oracle
> STUDIO/PRODUCER: HomeMade Video
>
> The world has fallen under the dictatorship of the HEALTHY LIVING. The Veggies and the fruits are now the favorite of the human slaves, while the previous sweets clan is now rejected and oppressed by the veggies. The few survivors are kept in order to satisfy the cruaulty of the HEALTHYLIVING army. The teacakes are throw into boiling water, the biscuits are locked for life in glass jar and the candies have been definitely suppressed from the kitchen.
The army have been helped by the CerealMen that was previously part of the Sweet clan but now have joined the HEALTHYLIVING: theses have taken a major role in the war as they deceived the human and made them forget the SWEETS.
However...one day an human found in a forbidden book a recipe to create a gingerboy... Secretly that human cooked him and hope to be able to enjoy it without being notice by the HEALTHYLIVING propaganda member, his wife.
Newly born, the faith of that Gingerboy was sad and dark: nothing could happen in the kitchen without being notice by the army. He was destined to be tortured, covered in salt and throw slowly into a cup of boiling coffee.

But something went wrong.... Gingerboy was not like the other... His creator used by mistake a powerful ancient ingredient that will change the life of Gingerboy, forever!

Diary: draft

The project has been carefully done following specific steps from January to March where it was submitted.

-Firstly, the coursework instructions have been read carefully in order to select the assignement. Once that "making a video" has been selected, it was possible to move to the next step.

-Secondly, the story has been drafted on paper. Once that the story have been more or less defined, it was necessary to create the characters, defining their personality, their motivation... Then it was important to define the location of the story and the context.

-Thirdly, the next step was to reproduce that story for a video: telling the story with images and not words. It was the time when the storyboard was produced.

-Once the storyboard was produced, the multimedia designer task was to decide which tools using to produce the final video from that storyboard: a list of ressources needed has been created.

-Then the next stage was the actual production: shooting the movie.

-After that the movie was shot, the video was captured and edited in the post production stage.

-Once that preliminary steps have been achieved the compositing has started:
producing 3D actors and adding special effects in order to make them fit and look as if they was part of the virtual world presented in the video.

-Finally, the last step was to add the audio and encode the resulting video.


This overall diary draft will be now presented in details with the perspective to show the regular progress, the difficulties encountered and how they were fixed.

Finally.............

..............I find my account login and password!!
I have been trying to upload my paper based design diary since this morning...
But as I used a dummy email specially created for that blog... I forgot it!!!
After 1h42minutes I find it again!!

Lets bloooooog!