Video Production - Site modified 1-1-08 Your culminating project for this first semester will be a collaborative project with some of your classmates. It will be a test of your collaboration and production skills to meet a design problem. It will involve the use of Cinema4D, Final Cut Pro and any other software you may find necessary for this assignment. After the exam period, you will begin your portfolio production work. You should have a completed project requirement every 3 to 4 weeks at a minimum. That means that you need to be organized and diligent about keeping up with your work. You will be graded on your lab performance on a regular basis and also on periodic deadlines for completed projects. If you do not put in extra lab time, it is very likely that you will not finish your portfolio. You have a lot of work to complete and it is vital that you stay organized and keep to a tight schedule. If you need assistance, just ask.
Scroll down to the Video Production section below for a list of the requirements for your final portfolio. All projects will need designs and/or storyboards. Get started on them in your design notebook.
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Journalism - Site modified 1-1-08. This information was sent to you via email but just in case, here it is again.
For your planning purposes, here is the schedule for the next few days (starting Jan. 2) and exam work that we will be doing. I am trying to get the bulk of your exam done before the actual day hoping that this will lighten your load and help you prepare for other exams.
Wednesday: You will be completing your reflection during this period. Think about your work over the past semester and your contribution to the team efforts. Reflect on things you liked, disliked and ways that you could improve your contributions in the upcoming semester. Also, think about ways that the class dynamics could be improved and/or things that I could do to help make your Journalism experience better. I will have specific questions for you to respond to.
Thursday/Friday: You will be doing the editing portion of your exam. I will give you a story that you will be required to mark up for errors and corrections to make it into a perfect story. Be sure to review all of the writing/editing things that we have been doing in class. You will need to identify up to 45 mistakes in the document and mark up any changes. This will NOT be a typed assignment. You will only be hand marking the document.
Exam day: you will complete a preflight process on a document that I give you. You will be expected to know how to fix all errors, including photos that do not meet the proper criteria. If you are not comfortable with this process, you need to make time in the next few days to work on it and ask for help. I will expect to get 100% clean documents for you.
Next week we will be discussing and planning for the TV news show. I still do not have final Fox stories from some groups. ALL GROUPS must have a completed story, even if you feel it is not up to what it should be. I need final stories for this term grade. If you do not complete it, your grade will be seriously affected.
As soon as I get all of the Fox stories, we will review them as these will be the basis for the TV news shows. You will also be put into groups to produce an additional story for the TV news show. These will be groups of 3 or 4. Start thinking about ideas now.
Enjoy these last few hours of vacation and I will forward to seeing a dynamic, ready-to-roll, group of journalists tomorrow.
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Excellence does not just happen. It is a choice you make every day!
Video Production/3D animation:
Your success depends on your level of committment to learning. You must be willing to study the process and procedures used in this field and constantly experiment in order to progress. We only have a limited amount of time to study during class. There is a tremendous amount of information available online on Cinema 4D, Final Cut Pro and other programs we will use in this class. To help yo in your quest to learn, I will periodically post a question on this site. Students who find the answers and bring it to class written down will receive extra points toward your grade.
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Portfolio Requirements
1. 3D identity - 3D animated logo with music track (should be 15 seconds or less)
keep it tight and great!
2. Commercial - 30 second (max) commercial for a product or service; you may work in teams but each member will edit his/her own commercial using the footage. NO EXCEPTIONS.
3. Realistic 3D image - pick an object to model; apply textures, lights and environmental objects or background to make it look real
4. Composite - create one or more 5 - 10 second spots showing the use of compositing
5. Special effects - create 3 - 4 short spots demonstrating the use of special effects in video
6. DVD case/face packaging - professional packing for your portfolio
7. Extras - pick an area that you wish to specialize in and create one or more brief clips demonstrating your skills in this
Cool Web sites:
http://www.c4dtextures.com/modules/rmdp/
Materials for 3D work: These sites have textures for your projects.
http://www.noctua-graphics.de/english/C4D-Mat/free_sla01_e.htm
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Cinema-4D/Materials/1
http://cg-india.com/free_textures.html
http://www.maxon.net/~deepshade/shader/shadr_inx.html
http://www.3d-animation.com.ar/tutorials_cinema4d_creating_and_applying_textures.php
http://www.c4dtextures.com/modules/rmdp/
Check out the site above for cool C4D stuff.
* The web site below has great information on using After Effects that can be a big help in creating your portfolio:
http://www.adobe.com/resources/education/curriculum/hed/study_motion.html
check out the Final Cut Pro Free tutorials here:
http://www.softwaretrainingtutorials.com/final-cut-pro-4.php
These are great free tutorials reviewing the basics of Final Cut Pro. Watch them for review.
http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/finalcutprox.shtml
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Video Production
The Design Process
In order to develop professional designs, it is necessary to thoroughly work out the ideas. This involves doing MANY thumbnail sketches to explore POSITION. You should have an idea of the content and these sketches are used to try various sizes and positions for these elements. Agaiin, you should have many of these before you move on. Thumbnail sketches are proportional to the final design but do not have to be any particular size.
Look at this link for more information:
http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/basic/a/thumbnails.htm
Tips for effective design:
Explore a concept thoroughly; take one idea and try every possible arrangement that you can think of
For 3D animated logos, remember that you can design it but you might have problems animating it. Keep the motion plan in mind as you design your logo.
The Design Process - Planning your portfolio
An effective portfolio communicates to the viewer your skills and abilities. It should be a collection of your BEST work and should only show short portions of longer productions.
Phase 1 - Thumbnails sketches
Thumbnail sketches are quick, ideas that you put down on paper. It is like brainstorming. Do not spend a lot of time creating a detailed drawing. Instead, focus on getting every idea on paper that comes to mind. Explore every possibility and variation that you can.
Phase 2 - Rough Layout
The second phase involves finalizing the concept using Rough Layouts. Review your thumbnail sketches and pick the one you like best then make a careful, accurate drawing of this. These are more accurate drawings that should be proportional to the final product and should be carefully drawn. If you do not make neat, accurate drawings at this point, it is difficult to see if the concept will work.
For the rough layout phase of design, you should select the thumbnail sketch that has the most potential for a great design and produce a rough layout that is accurate and neat. Once this is done, you can accept it and move on, you can reject it and choose another thumbnail sketch to work out, or you can modify it. Your job is to FINALIZE the design so that you can continue in the production process.
DESIGN NOTEBOOKS
Your design notebooks need to be complete. For every project, or portion of it, you should have a complete set of thumbnail sketches and a finalized rough layout. You may have several roughs, but there should always be a polished rough layout that accurately represents your design.
It is important to remember that second semester work will be based on your design notebook. If you do not have a complete notebook, you will not be permitted to begin the production process.
Review all of your assigned work to this point and get your design work completed for each project.
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Video Production Portfolio Development
To be successful in your portfolio development and end up with a professional product, it is important that you spend time doing some "research." This involves reading up on techniques, looking at tutorials to learn how to do particular operations and experimenting at the computer in your free time.
Cinema 4D techniques you should know:1. Creating and modifying Primitive objects
2. Moving, rotating and scaling objects
3. World coordinates vs. object coordinates
4. Set up and apply a material
5. Making objects editable. How and why?
6. Selecting polygons, points or edges
7. Extruding polygons
8. Using NURBS: Extrude, Sweep and Lathe NURBS
9. What does HPB stand for?
10. What does "bump" do in a material?
11. Align to spline Tag. Set up and use it.
12. Selection sets.
13. Cameras. Adding cams and looking through them.
14. F-Curves for ease-in and ease-out. (think propeller)
15. Inverse volumetric lighting
16. Matrix Extrude and Inner extrude
17. 3 point lighting (main, fill and hair lights)
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Journalism
Becoming a successful journalist involves listening and being aware of the world around you. Don't just report what you see, but be willing to dig for information that will help us see the world through the eyes of others. How do events affect people? Don't just tell us that an event happened. Look at things through the eyes of others and make your stories exciting.
For questions or information regarding the Journalism or Video courses, please contact me through my email address.
JOURNALISM HOMEWORK
TIPS:
The following link has information regarding conducting interviews and ways that you can be more successful with them. Read through the entire section (there are multiple pages) and use these in your newsgathering process.
http://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/interviews/
