It is important to evaluate a project on an ongoing basis. Project Evaluation is about researching the underlying causes impacting the project. The on-going evaluation informs the decisions a project manager takes as the project evolves.
The purpose of a maintenance program is to increase filming and editing equipment and asset uptime, efficiency, productivity, and profitability. Filming equipment and editing computer assets without a maintenance and software updates program means unanticipated breakdowns, reactive repairs, and production downtime — all of which drive up costs and delays.
I am pleased that I have undertaken on-going evaluations as I always had full batteries for my drone flying experiences and I always had clean lenses ready to use and regularly up to date software versions.
I designed a checklist for the maintenance of my hardware, camera equipment, lenses, lights, poles, fittings, green screen etc as well as drone and GoPro because I needed to make sure all of the steps are followed for each stage of the production of the project.
I also updated all my software applications because I needed to ensure up to date compatibility with other software and hardware, as well as my operating system in order to maintain any issues with compatibility or bugs that my operating system or software or hardware are facing.
The purpose of using The Principles of Design help organise the composition of the website project in order to
communicate effectively to the viewers. The main Principles are Unity, Variety, Emphasis, Rhythm & Movement,
Balance, Pattern, and Proportion.
The objective for the short film was to apply Design Principles of Unity, Variety, Emphasis, Rhythm and Movement,
Pattern and Proportion to maintain Balance and Unity.
In my short film, I am satisfied with BALANCE as I have structured the film into 3 sections. I have chosen to have a
newsreader presenting the climate change issues and use the news reading typical studio to do so. This studio gives
credibility to the information and allows for integration of the viewers into witnessing what is happening globally.
The news reading stage provides UNITY and allows for EMPHASIS on either the reader or the TV screen behind the
reader.
The RHYTHM/MOVEMENT is fast with flashes of grave incidents on the screen accompanied by loud transitional
sound effects.
The short film is structured into 3 parts with part 1 and part 3 involving the news reading studio but with part 2
involving an interruption by an Artificial intelligent robot. It is a ternary structure ABA almost like in music. This
allows a circular PATTERN representing life.
The PROPORTIONS are respected or exaggerated with the use of a robot, emphasis on the speaker then emphasis on
the scene of disaster to create importance and movement and direct the viewer to what is being emphasised.
Animations provide a strong representation of facts and statistics to strengthen the credibility of the science behind
climate change. It is also used in the logo as well as in special effects to grab the viewers’ attention and create
VARIETY.
In the design of my filming, I have used local places for my primary audiences to feel at home and relate as well as a
projection of secondary data from the rest of the world.
I have used music to create VARIOUS sound effects, and a UNIFYING mood.
I found a quiet workplace to film. Minimisation of background noise is key to a good recording.
I decided to choose the city as a place to film the polluted environment because it will show all the Carbon dioxide
and pollution that is being produced, as well as showing the petrol prices, and the traffic on the way to the city, in
order to demonstrate that people will need to go from petrol cars to electric cars.
Evaluating every section of the film against the design principles was most important at editing stages.
I decided early in the website project design that I would be using the globe as a background, that the green colour would be my theme as it is a strong representative of the environment and nature in general. A light silver grey for the continents married well with the light almond green. A black font and a text box on the left-hand side of the screen were recurring themes in the design.
I am satisfied that Balance and Unity have been achieved successfully thanks to the attention I was able to give to the principles of design and the on-going evaluations have certainly helped me keep testing my pages against the standard I wanted to keep for balance and Unity.
The purpose of ascertaining the practical skills inventory I had as a developer and producer was critical to the Designing and producing of this short film successfully and on time; as it required many professional practical skills.
I valued and used carefully the Hardware equipment I had.
- The storage capacity of my computer (SSD) as well as my hard drive were key for back up purposes as well as saving very large files such as footage, animation and video samples.
- I also valued my camera and the drone. Quality equipment made production easier and satisfying.
- I had to ensure certain steps to save battery and operate smoothly. For example, I lowered my brightness down on my computer at night to save battery drain and to reduce eye strain and I ensured every HW component was switched off after use to avoid any power surge and protect the equipment.
- I used a green cloth screen and special lighting as well as tripods and teleprompt reader on the iPad under the camera for recording the news reader properly. The teleprompter was a key one which emerged from an evaluation as the actor struggled through his lines. This was an additional cost of $32.00 well spent as it cut the time and the quality of the recording for news reading considerably.
- My large number of screens, cables and plugs came handy. I was satisfied with the hardware I had planned for and that I had.
The evaluation of the hardware was redundant on some areas as I was experienced at producing videos but was very useful in the case of the interview of the news reader as the idea of a teleprompter emerged.
- I have been training for years on ADOBE PREMIERE PRO as well as After Effects, and Adobe illustrator so I was happy with my level starting the video editing and the animation.
- I used photoshop and special effects for the logo.
- I attended on line tutoring when required for specific skills I wanted to acquire.
- The rendering with Premiere went smoothly and I made effective use of secondary footage and ensured strict filing of my asset’s library. That was key to keep track of my libraries.
Exporting did not cause any issues.
As I evaluated my progress through editing, I consulted some training videos on Youtube when I needed to further my command of the Special Effects for example or animation software.
Overall, the prototyping, modelling and testing of applications and processes that I have completed has satisfied my aim of discovering what I am capable of producing.
- I have found that Blender models take a considerable amount of time to produce and also to Render. I have also found that I am fairly proficient in After Effects.
- As a result, I integrated 2D and 3D animations in my major project using After Effects and potentially other simple animation software application.
- I have decided to make a cartoon animation for my introduction to the CO2 Smart short film using Illustrator and After Effects to create an animation using vector images, since it will be easier for me to use these programs rather than use Unity which was what I wanted to use previously.
- I have decided to use factories with dark clouds and a lightning strike to start the CO2 Smart video off. Other animations of statistics I decided to create also demonstrate well the increase in CO2 in our atmosphere affecting climate change.
- The 2D Graphics I have decided to create with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop are well designed and have a logical structure of layers so that it is easily animated. Of course, the details can always be improved and look more professional. But overall, the 2D graphics demonstrate well Climate change.
- Animation could be more effective using a 3D tool or unity. This is an option to be investigated for the future.
The animated Logo idea of having the O in Be CO2 Smart have a shadow and blur effect at 80% in order to show something eye-catching on the page makes the logo memorable.
I have decided to use InDesign for my portfolio and I am pleased with the creative and colourful result so far.
I am satisfied with the primary footage I was able to capture on camera. I have captured footage in the city to show traffic and pollution in our way of life at peak hour. I have captured nature and oceans to contrast and as a base to discuss rising oceans. I have used a drone to give the viewers an overall perspective.
I am satisfied with the secondary footage I was able to source to exemplify storms, strong winds and climate change devastation so far in the world.
I was satisfied with the way I understood my strengths and weaknesses especially regarding my hardware and software skills. For the portfolio I started with In Design and I am happy with the creativity I am able to achieve with this software.
Typical of a passionate like myself, I would always like to perfect and spend more time on certain animations and film editing but I had to manage my time and stick somehow to a schedule.
I tried to discuss my project as much as possible with peers to test some of my ideas and how people reacted to certain facts about climate change and how much or how little they actually understood and what they would benefit from in terms of information and process understanding of the science and the statistics in order to pursue the achievement of my objectives and represent the issue as visually and as engagingly as possible.
This project and the ongoing evaluations made me realise that this project could easily be expanded to embrace a new opportunity and become through its website a channel through which interested people could keep informed through news and updates and engaging activities for all ages.
I have maintained my quality control within my video creation by making sure that when I edit my project in Adobe Premiere pro, I used the marker on the timeline to mark in and mark out so that when I exported the footage, it renders that timeframe that is marked instead of exporting the project that has unused footage, or a black screen in between the footage. I have maintained my quality control with my camera by making sure that the shot is within the grid of the rule of thirds before I took the shot.
I have maintained my quality control with the drone by following through the checklist and by making sure that the batteries were fully charged before take-offs, checking the weather conditions before flying the drone and notifying the spectators if any around for awareness and permission for flying the drone.
I have also made sure that I followed the rule of thirds to make the photographer/videographer make the camera shot or angle shot perfect.