Image Visualisation - Reflection

Image Visualisation – Reflection

What we learned

During the course of this mission, my group and I learned a lot about image visualisation. We learned how you can look at things very differently if they are portrayed in a different manner than you’re used to. We learned how to collaborate effectively when all of your work is in a digital form (communication, file sharing etc). On top of these things we also gained new abilities in softwares such as Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Photoshop. Even though I had previous experience with them, I felt like I was still learning new things about them such as how to more efficiently carry out whatever task it is that I’m doing or even just learn something new with the software altogether. 

Discoveries

As I said previously in this post, I felt like I was constantly learning new things in photoshop and premiere pro, which I didn’t think I would, so that’s always nice. Personally, this was my favourite mission to work on so far for a few reasons. I liked that I didn’t have to stand up in front of an audience and speak to them with the aid of a powerpoint presentation as that can be extremely stressful for me. I also really enjoy video editing as a pastime, so it’s always great when I can use it as a project for college, as it’s something I’m already passionate about so it increases my focus and drive to create something that I’m proud of. 

Challenges

In comparison to the other missions, there were far less challenges that I faced during this one. I was fairly comfortable with all of the software that we were using already. The only thing I can really think of that could be considered a challenge was something that we just overlooked, a small error. It was for one of the movie scenes images, when they were overalyed together the final image was relatively dark. Now this seemed fine for the most part because none of us could see a problem with it on our own computers but when we were playing our video presentation it came out almost completely pitch black, so it was impossible for anybody to tell what it was. It felt nice that the only challenge was a small error that could easily be fixed. 

Image Visualisation - Product

Image Visualisation – Product 

Creation

So, to create the images that we did, we collected many images of the same things. I collected frames from movie scenes and overlayed them all together to create one image, another group member gathered images of famous actors / actresses and overlayed them together, and the final group member overlayed images of famous places and overlayed them together. This was all done using photoshop to create new layers and turn the opacity down on all of the images, so they blended together. In my case, I had to download full movies and skip to the specific scene I wanted and take screenshots of every single frame from that scene. 

Creation of the presentation

For our presentation we had to produce a video of approximately 5 minutes in length to display what we had learned and showcase the final product that we had made. Our group decided that we wanted to have a little fun with it and turn it into a game show where we would show the images that were overlayed together on screen, and have a list of choices that the audience could choose from and they had to guess the right answer. This meant that the audience would get involved and feel a part of the presentation. We also recorded voice overs for the gameshow, in which we introduced the show, what the rounds were, what the correct answers were which showed teamwork. To create the video presentation, we used Adobe Premiere Pro, which was beneficial to me because I had previous experience with the software. We added in backgrounds, text, animations for the answers, voiceovers, synced the audio together, and basically just tied all of our work together using Premiere Pro. 

Image Visualisation - Process

Image Visualisation – Process

Goals

For our image visualisation project, we wanted to take images of easily recognisable things such as famous places, actors, or movie scenes for example, and overlay the image with hundreds of images of the same thing and see if people would be able to recognise what the original image was. To do this we will need to make sure that whatever we decide to use is universally famous so that the people guessing won’t be at too much of a disadvantage. 

Product

By the end, we hope to produce images of famous things / people that at a glance people wouldn’t be able to recognise but upon closer inspection will be able to. To present all of this, we wanted to create a video that would be a sort of parody of gameshow’s, with voiceovers and the audience will have to guess the correct answer from the choices given. 

Resources

The mac labs that are available to us in college are an absolute god send when trying to get work done with how powerful they, not to mention you have less distractions compared to when you do work at home so you can stay focused. We used 2 main programs to create our video presentation, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere pro. As we can get these premium softwares from college for free, everyone In our group was able to use it, thus making our lives a lot easier with spreading out the work load. It was also helpful that we were using Adobe software as I have decent experience with both photoshop and premiere pro, so I didn’t have a steep learning curve to photo or video editing. A member of my group also had access to good audio recording equipment, so that meant that we were able to get crisp audio for our voiceovers in the video. 

Activism & Agency - Reflection

Activism & Agency – Reflection

During the course of this mission, I learned a great deal about hashtag activism by researching the topic online, reading articles and conducting my own research using TAGS. I learned about the importance of activism in today’s society and what is different these days in comparison to the time before social media in terms of activism. 

Activism is extremely important because without, no injustice would ever be challenged, and it would make the world progressively become worse each day.

Challenges

One of the challenges we faced was that we originally tried to use NodeXL instead of TAGS. NodeXL wasn’t working out for us and we spent too much time trying to get that to work instead of moving on and going with TAGS. 

Another challenge we faced was that we didn’t meet up when creating our presentation so we had used a whatsapp group to coordinate each individual piece that was going into it, making communication a little bit blurred when trying to create it, and files being sent to each other without need etc.

I am also very anxious when it comes to public speaking so leading up to the presentation, I was extremely nervous and trying to fight off a panic attack because I didn’t want to let my team down. During the presentation I was extremely nervous and you could hear it in my voice and my breathing wasn’t normal, so I stuttered and mumbled some of the words.

Evaluation

Overall, I think our group did very well with our project. I was very proud of myself for fighting off the nerves when presenting and completing it. Our slide presentation was very well created, and we were able to discuss the topics from our knowledge instead of reading the information straight from the slides. One thing I think we could have done better was that we focused a little bit too much on the presentation instead of the actual product we were trying to produce which we lost a little bit of marks in but it’s a good lesson for the next time around that we have a project to complete. 

Activism & Agency - Product

Activism & Agency - Process

Introduction

In order to create our group, everyone in the class decided individually what mission they'd each like to undertake for the Culture mission. Once everyone had identified what mission they'd like to undertake, everyone joined a group of like-minded people to take on the task. After we had formed our group we had, gotten each other’s contact details and set up a WhatsApp group and slack channel to communicate with each other to coordinate our work for the project.  After this, we all brainstormed ideas on how we should take on the task, what we should focus on and what should be added after we get our main point of the assignment completed. I was personally interested in this topic because I think activism is important in the world we live in where there are many injustices and issues that need to be fixed. Without activism, nothing would ever change.

Goals

Our goals for this assignment are to learn about activism in the age of social media, how it changes from before social media, what hashtag activism is, learn about certain popular hashtags in recent times etc.

Among learning about hashtag activism, another goal is to learn how to archive and annotate social media content. To do this, we will be using TAGS,  to archive rising hashtags and produce commentary on said hashtag.

Upon completing all of our groups predetermined tasks, we wanted to create a PowerPoint presentation on our project to show what we have learned and achieved over the course of completing the mission. We had to make sure that we didn’t use too much text in our presentation as it would looks as if we didn’t do much research if we just read from the screen so we decided as a group that we would have bullet points in our presentation to show the important details about each slide and we would then expand further from our knowledge gained from conducting research. We also needed to make sure that we each did an adequate amount of research in the discussed topics because at the end of our presentation we wanted to have a section where people in the audience could ask us questions, so we didn’t want to be caught off-guard. To create our presentation for this mission, we wanted to each create a PowerPoint presentation each, then meet up and take bits and pieces from each to make it as collaborative and well put together as possible. 

The Art of the Animated GIF - Reflection

The Art of the Animated GIF - Reflection

Upon undertaking this task I was under the impression that I already had quite a bit of knowledge on GIF's. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out just how little I actually knew about them. 

I began the project by researching and reading articles about GIF’s to get a proper understanding of them before trying to create anything related to them. I wanted to make sure that I had minimum level of knowledge about the topic. 

Challenges

Unfortunately for me, I was set back during this assignment when my colleague in my group dropped out, leaving me without a group to complete the assignment with. I spent nearly 2 weeks attempting to try get into a group so I could complete my work. I was not successful in getting into another group as everyone else was already in one. I then decided to buckle down and just do the assignment myself, which is hard but worth it in the end. 

Working on many different machines proved to be an issue for me as sometimes some things would work on some and not on others. So in the future I think I would try my best to complete all of my work on the same machine to minimise potential setbacks and slowdowns.

Discoveries

Upon completing this assignment I have a learned a vast amount about the GIF and it's history. I figured out what was the best and easiest tool for creating GIF's which I found out as Giphy. 

I also found out that I think I work more effectively in stricter guidelines for projects, as I tend to get overwhelmed with the possibilities of an open choice. I focus a lot easier when I know exactly what needs to be done but then again, if that was the case I wouldn't be broadening my creativity so I feel like this method helps in that sense.

Overall I was actually very proud of how the final product and presentation came out considering the setbacks I had, and I liked my presentation design as I feel it had just enough information for the audience to be able to take away the necessary information without me just reading everything I was saying from the board. I was also very proud of myself for being able to present my presentation as I really struggle with anxiety, especially with public speaking. Even though I was nervous and you could hear it in my voice, I pushed on and completed the presentation which was a big win for me. 

Activism & Agency - Process

Activism & Agency - Process

Introduction

In order to create our group, everyone in the class decided individually what mission they'd each like to undertake for the Culture mission. Once everyone had identified what mission they'd like to undertake, everyone joined a group of like-minded people to take on the task. After we had formed our group we had, gotten each other’s contact details and set up a WhatsApp group and slack channel to communicate with each other to coordinate our work for the project.  After this, we all brainstormed ideas on how we should take on the task, what we should focus on and what should be added after we get our main point of the assignment completed. I was personally interested in this topic because I think activism is important in the world we live in where there are many injustices and issues that need to be fixed. Without activism, nothing would ever change.

Goals

Our goals for this assignment are to learn about activism in the age of social media, how it changes from before social media, what hashtag activism is, learn about certain popular hashtags in recent times etc.

Among learning about hashtag activism, another goal is to learn how to archive and annotate social media content. To do this, we will be using TAGS,  to archive rising hashtags and produce commentary on said hashtag.

Upon completing all of our groups predetermined tasks, we wanted to create a PowerPoint presentation on our project to show what we have learned and achieved over the course of completing the mission. We had to make sure that we didn’t use too much text in our presentation as it would looks as if we didn’t do much research if we just read from the screen so we decided as a group that we would have bullet points in our presentation to show the important details about each slide and we would then expand further from our knowledge gained from conducting research. We also needed to make sure that we each did an adequate amount of research in the discussed topics because at the end of our presentation we wanted to have a section where people in the audience could ask us questions, so we didn’t want to be caught off-guard. To create our presentation for this mission, we wanted to each create a PowerPoint presentation each, then meet up and take bits and pieces from each to make it as collaborative and well put together as possible. 

The Art of the Animated GIF - Product

The Art of The Animated GIF – Product

Creation of GIF’s 

As part of my project, I wanted to create my own set of GIF’s to include in my presentation. I wanted to show that it actually is very simple once you get the hang of it and understand the technical specifications of GIF’s themselves.

I tried out many different tools that can be used to create GIF’s. I eventually decided upon going with the website Giphy. Giphy is a free website centring around GIF’s. Users can use their tools to create their own or search for GIF’s created by other users by using the search feature. It’s a simple and very user-friendly website. 

To create my GIF’s, I created an account on the GIPHY website, and then navigated to the ‘Create’ section. From there you can add a set of images to create a slideshow GIF or input a URL from YouTube or Vimeo and GIPHY will take the section that you desire to be turned into a GIF and do it for you. You can trim the video, select specific sections of the video turned into a GIF. Along with this you can also add effects such as captions, stickers and filters to change how it looks. 

Presentation

Upon completing this project, I had to create a PowerPoint presentation on the work I had undertaken over the last few weeks. I wanted to discuss everything I had research and talk about my thoughts and opinions are. In my presentation I talked about what GIF’s are and where they came from, what they are used for today, what tools are out there to create GIF’s and how they’re used, and finally demonstrate how I went about creating my own GIF’s. At the end I included a section for the audience to ask my any questions they may have after listening to my presentation. 

The Art of the Animated GIF - Process

Art of the Animated GIF - Process 

Goals

For my project for mission 1 of introduction to digital media, I decided to take on the challenge of The Art of the Animated GIF. I was interested in this particular topic as I found it intriguing how they have become a frequent form of communication in our everyday life nowadays. 

My goals this assignment is to learn all about GIF's. How they work, the history, and how they're used years back and in present time. I will be learning about the technical specifications of the GIF, while also exploring the cultural practices and impact it has had on society in its lifetime. 

The biggest goal for me in partaking in this task is to learn how to create GIF's myself while also learning what the best tools are and practices for creating the best possible GIF's.

End Product

By the end of this, I hope to be able to properly explain GIF's and their history to other people and create a presentation to convey my thoughts effectively to my fellow classmates. I would like to create a few of my own GIF’s to show that I have put in the work and research on the topic, and to also teach people how they can create their own GIF’s if they so desired to do so, by demonstrating what I had to do in order to create my own GIF’s for this project. I hope that my demonstration will steer people in the right direction. 

Resources

Google and YouTube probably me my most helpful resources when researching and creating GIF’s. While I may know what they are, I definitely do not know the technical and historical aspects of them. These two resources will be extremely helpful in the completion of my project.

The mac labs in college will also be extremely helpful tools for my projects as those rooms are equipped with powerful iMac’s which will greatly help the GIF creation section of the task. I will also want to test out a few different methods of GIF creation and with some being software based like Photoshop, having a powerful computer to use will be very useful to avoid crashes and long waiting times. 

There are a handful of very useful articles at my disposal that I can use to learn about the historical and technical specification aspects of GIF’s like https://news.artnet.com/art-world/a-brief-history-of-animated-gif-art-part-one-69060 which covers the history. 

Our college also provides us free access to the Microsoft Office service which includes things like Word, and PowerPoint which will be crucial to this project as I will be creating a presentation for my class about my project. 

One of the methods I would like to try out for GIF creation is Photoshop, which I can use for free using my college email, and that has been a lifesaver. 

Introduction Post

Introduction to a future video editor

Hello! My name is Rob, I'm 22 and from Offaly but currently living in Tyrellstown for college. I'm currently studying Creative Digital Media in TU Dublin - Blanchardstown campus. In the future I would like to work in video / film production working mainly as a video editor or VFX artist. I've always had an interest in doing this as a job since I was a kid as I was always fascinated by the incredible effects and techniques used in filmmaking.

Some of my favourite movies include The Wolf of Wall Street, Pulp Fiction, and all of the Marvel movies. I also enjoy music, but mainly rap, punk & hardcore and metalcore. Gaming is a big hobby of mine and I play a lot of FIFA and Counterstrike. I really enjoy competitive games.

This is my first year in college and also my first time living away from home which has taken a bit of getting used to but after living on my own for the last few months I can say I much prefer it, because of the independence.