IDAT 108: Last week's meeting, progress and this week's filming

Last week's meeting managed to get everything sorted for the following week, which included getting the work schedule together and getting the storyboard onto a flowchart, in order to get an idea of what scenes are to be filmed and how they are going to be linked into the Facebook element before the multiple-choice endings, which involved various scenarios. This meeting gave me a much better picture of what will be expected out of the movie project, and how long we are going to take on the movie, as well as putting the foundations in place for preparation, ready for the filming, which was my part.

The work schedule included the filming schedule, which started from about 6pm on the 28th to the party at approximately 10pm, which then formed a central part of the character meeting the new partner, before then starting to reach the decision points where the viewer decides which ending is going to be used for the end scenario.

This week, filming has already commenced on the first and the last scenes, but due to time constraints (and the fact that the USB cable for the camera had been left at the director's house by accident owing to two bottles of cider on the first day of filming!), an extra day has been added to the schedule for the next 3 last scenes before filming is all wrapped-up and then the clips editing will be done before the premiere is due on Thursday, and also before the interactive movie is due to go live. Progress, on the other hand, is going very well, and despite the short timeframe that the project was given, it looks very good and when the premiere comes, it will all be polished up ready for it's debut.

IDAT 108: Film project with Skyzon Studios: Social Killer

As part of our project in IDAT108, we have decided to do an interactive film, which, under a fake-and-non-existant NDA (non-disclosure agreement), I can't say much to spoil the storyline (and the anticipation people are probably expecting for the film!) apart from the fact that the film features Facebook and a storyline that is decided via interactivity using Flash.

The experience of the meeting was very good as I've had a taste of what will be coming in the project, and how film projects in general work. Since then, I have been assigned the role of cameraman, and many things are starting to take shape: we now have a schedule set for preparing scripts, filming, editing, and the premiere that will take place after the film has been complete. All of that is within a given timeframe that has been set just in time for the last day of modules before the spring break, and before the SOFT131 exam and the workshops that are going to take place during May. We have also organised a party as a tie-in with the filming, and to create scenes that will be used with the film project.

SOFT 131 & IDAT 108: JIT (Just In Time)

After the time of Christmas and a few weeks afterwards, the end result of SOFT131's and IDAT108's coursework is now here. Many factors have affected how I tried to get around SOFT131, but after trial-and-error and a few rectifications of the code for the phonics, it has now come all together to form the final piece of the puzzle. Initially, I had problems trying to get the arrays to work, but after I managed, I then had to try and get the sounds to work, however, they didn't seem to work, until I had to change a few things regarding the variables and the syntax of the sound files (file = gender + soundnum[array]), which then resulted in sound. After getting the girl's voices to work, I then changed the code so then it randomly selects between a boy's and a girl's voice, but after changing the code, I was clueless into why it will only play the boy's voice and not randomise between boy and girl (and sometimes even go silent, which turned out to be caused by the randomiser not being coded properly), until I realised that I had to change the scope of the repeat so then it continues for 8 corresponding letters and at the same time also have a wider selection compared to previous. After all that it all works according to the Ronseal method (it does exactly what it says on the tin!) and also according to specification.

The essay was just another story. I was in my depths with my chosen technology as I knew that all the resources will be useful to my essay, and also because I am a huge fan of Apple, I'm familiar with the community side of things and that proved to be a boost when mentioning that the community, in addition to the media, drives the prediction to refinements that results from the first product evolving to add more features that would make Apple the leader in every market they compete in. That said, I have constructed detail that hopefully should result in a very good result, who knows?

These two assignments should pave way to something that is more interesting, whilst at the same time it provides a very good challenge to what I already know and what I will know for the future (at least I do get up for lectures all the time!).

Back to work: things to come

It's been quite a while since I've done an update, but rest assured, I had been busy working on the essay for IDAT108 and the phonics game for SOFT131 (both of which are now complete and are being submitted as of the date of publishing), in addition to starting off the IDAT107 animatic. Christmas has been very good, and although I do miss those homemade chili con carnes and quality Indian takeaways (although I'm pretty sure that somewhere in Plymouth could fill in the gap), I'm glad to be back to uni for many things which will be interesting, and talking of which, there are a lot of things to come, including, but not limited to:

• Bumper video for IDAT107 after the animatic
• Life-sized board game project for IDAT106, crossover with Year 2s
• Beginning work on 3D
• Practicals in IDAT108
• Custom Flash game for IDAT102 (the racing game was just a taster)
• ...and much more

Also, I will start sailing soon, every Wednesday (since there is now a huge gap between SOFT131 on Tuesdays and IDAT107 on Thursdays) and some Saturdays. Looks like 2011 is set to be very eventful and interesting at the same time.

IDAT 101, IDAT 108 & SOFT 131: Interesting stuff and a snake

Yesterday's and todays lectures brought many interesting things to my mind; more stuff about spaces and a cube that recognises your voice and adjusts accordingly (imagine saying 'antidisestablishmentarianism' into the cube?). Then there was more about the history of photo and video (even in history, someone can prove that high-quality images equivalent to what we can get now was actually possible back in the day) and then more about JavaScript and guess what? A snake came along to the lecture, and at first I didn't see the link about what we were learning until it was explored: literature about keeping snakes is in Fahrenheit because it came from our friends the other side of the pond, so therefore, a converter must be created in order to then change the units to Celsius, which we, like the most of the world, use.

IDAT 101, IDAT 102, IDAT 107, IDAT 108, SOFT 131, IDAT 106 and sailing

Last week, we was busy at work on many things ready for more stuff to come: IDAT 102 saw us looking more into CSS, IDAT 101 saw us starting to think about public spaces (our group's example was again the nightclub scenario), IDAT 108's lecture turned into a quiz about computer history and the seminar saw another debate; this time it was about our favourite social network, Facebook (all of us, like myself, were pretty much pro, so an anti-argument was very difficult), whilst IDAT 106 was different in the other weeks that the Y2s weren't there, so instead we looked more into the use of Processing and a prosumer HDV camera until the fire alarm saw us evacuating the Babbage building (our domain for most of the time) and disrupting the session for more than 20 minutes, until we finally returned. IDAT 107 was cancelled last week, but we will be doing more with Adobe Illustrator in the coming weeks until we move onto the next bit. SOFT 131's tutorial started last week to a hot room in the Smeaton Building when we then started to explore the world of NetBeans and PHP on Windows Server 2003 workstations, courtesy of Lord Sugar's Viglen (like most of the Windows PCs in the University are). This weekend, I went sailing in Roadford Lake with the Sailing and Powerboat Club (Sailpower) and it was such a good experience, until the tent got damp! That's all folks, more will be coming soon!

IDAT 108: Most interesting debate ever? You be the judge

Today's seminar was interesting; we were debating about the morality of guns and whether or not it's either the person or the gun that does the killing. Despite today straying a bit off topic (given that it was supposed to be DAT and not a pro/anti-weapons forum), I came up with interesting points during the debate. Next week will see us starting to get ready for the big type (in other words, the essay!) which will bring back the golden days of writing excellent essays that managed to get me such a high grade in English back in secondary school. There's no doubt that later in the day in IDAT 107 we will get busy with my favourite part of Adobe's wonderful Creative Suite series, Illustrator! That's all for now folks!

IDAT 101, IDAT 108, SOFT 131 and IDAT 106: the 411 on everything!

As the week progresses on, I have some more news for you:

IDAT 101 saw us learn more about the industry and about the usage of spaces for projects (in our case, interactive disco in the form of a sequencer pad in a club environment), whilst IDAT 108 saw us learn more about what a computer was before the ones we know today existed (it was in fact a person, believe it or not!). SOFT 131 featured more about HTML, holidays in Kenya and India and more to come in this module.

Finally, in IDAT 106, we got to play on the Wiimotes, in which thanks in part to Nintendo's uncanny (considering that they like proprietary stuff very much) decision to use Bluetooth for connectivity, we can do anything with them, even control digital art projects!

That's all folks!

IDAT 108: Now I do know more technology, didn't even know it existed 1000s of years ago!

Just as I was doing homework for IDAT 108, I know realised the many different links technology had in the past centuries, even before we had what we now call technology. It was only recently that the term applied to all those fancy gadgets we took for granted in the late 20th century, and still do in the 21st century. Now let's hope that these links will come full circle at the seminar tomorrow.