Doodles

In my spare time I find my self doodling a lot. When I doodle I usually create characters and give them names. I create a story in my head of how I want these characters to act and look, however I am still working on getting a story down on paper. I usually doodle with pens as I find that the easiest tool to use in comparison with pencils. I have almost finished creating on my characters and are hoping to bring them to life one day. The next step in my progress is to make different views of my characters, create a storyboard and then hopefully to make a 3D animation. It will only be a short animation though as I don't think I am skilled enough to jump into the deep end in creating a full length movie. So I am quite happy with making a short movie.
Here are some doodle I have done.

Scarface the Board game

My boyfriend (Stephen Wood) was set a task to create a board game based on a movie/ TV programme that inspired him. He chose Scarface as it was a movie that he watch growing up and he really enjoyed the story and the characters. He came up to me and asked me to help him make the models for his game as he has no experience in making models. Of course I said yes, so we got to it. Firstly we talked about how he wanted his characters to look, then we researched in finding pictures of characters from Scarface. Then we set out to create the models. We used fimo for this as it is easy to manipulate and once it is baked it is nice and hard. We created images of money in order for us to have money and we also made Scarface cards (like chance cards in monopoly).

History In Creative Advertising

This was a lecture that I attended which I found to be really interesting. This links well with my course as there is a lot about digital arts in advertising. It also reveals how we achieved such good quality advertising at such an early stage of printing.

Here are my note on the lecture.

Post Modernism

I attended another lecture in which I learned all about post modernism and how it can be seen in your work. Post modernism started off in the 70's and has grown to be in many peoples homes. By the style of furniture and decor. I enjoyed learning about post modernism as it is something that I could include in my work in the future.
Here are my notes on the lecture.

Type Lecture

I attended a lecture all about typography. I learnt a lot about how text can influence your audience with in presentations, advertisements ect...

I took notes during the lecture her is what I wrote down.

As it says in my notes a style of type can judge what your piece will seem like e.g old fashioned, futuristic ect...

Square Enix

Square Enix is a video game publisher, distributer and developer. It was founded in 2003 by Enix and Square Co. coming together. It is based in Japan, Tokyo. Some of Square Enix games consist of All Star Pro Wrestling, Final Fantasy Series, Front Mission series, Dragon Quest, Space Invaders and more. They are most famously known for their first person shooting games. Square Enix has subsidiaries of Square Pictures, Square Enix Europe, Taito, Gangan Comics, Square Enix Mobile and Digital Entertainment Academy co.

Square Enix

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EA Games

EA games is an American company which markets, publishes and distributes video games. They are widely known for their sports games for example; the FIFA series. It was founded in 1982 by Trip Hawkins. EA games is the third worlds largest company with Nintendo and Activision Blizzard coming above it. Games that EA are responsible for consist of FIFA, NFL, NBA Jam, Battlefield, The Sims, Medal Of Honour, Need For Speed, Dead Space, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and many more. EA is based in California, Red Wood City. EA Games have been said to have their employees working horrifying long hours, where they would only get the odd sunday off for 'Good behaviour'. The employees put forward a class action lawsuit for not being paid for their over in which they won and received $15.6 million. Since this EA have tried to improve their employees work life and the employees moral has increased significantly. However there are rumours that they are falling back into old habits.

EA Games

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Sony Pictures Animation

Sony Pictures Animation is a computer animation based company owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. It was founded in 2002, their first full featured film was Open Season in 2006. Open Season received a 6.1 from IMDb. Before Open Season they helped to create CGI effects for films such as Stuart Little, Shrek and Monsters Inc. There financial success started with The Smurfs as that made $563,749,323 world wide  from  a budget of $110,000,000, so it was a massive success. Other movie that they have contributed to consist of  The Pirates An Adventure With Scientists, Surfs Up, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, Arthur Christmas and Hotel Transylvania.
Sony Pictures Animation

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Copyrights

We have learnt about copyrights during a class at uni, this enables us to understand what rights we have to our own works and to understand what copyrights mean. Copyrights is what gives the creator full rights to what they have created. This means that if someone wants to use what they have created they must get permission, so it's completely up to them with what happens with there materials. Copyrights cover anyone copying, distributing, public performance and adapting other peoples works. Material that are covered with copyright consist of films, music, images, games, animations and computer apps. If you put a piece of your own work on the internet it is covered but only in the UK. Copyrights can last up to 70 years after the creators death. To prove that a piece of work originate from you, you could deposit it at a solicitor or bank and then send a copy to yourself, this would be include a postmark. Leave the envelope unopened, this would prove that it existed at that point in time.

DreamWorks Studios

DreamWorks studios is based in California and was founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. DreamWorks produce and develop films, television programmes and video games. They are most famous for there animated films they produce. DreamWorks had won 3 award during the period of 1999- 2001 for best picture for Gladiator, American Beauty and A Beautiful Mind. At first DreamWorks was a computer and video game in 2005 but then EA bought it and changed it to Danger Close Games. The studio makes the most money by producing amazing animations such as Antz, Chicken Run and Shrek. DreamWorks has been close to bankruptcy twice but it's there award winning animations that help them to bounce back. The biggest competitors that DreamWorks have are Disney and Pixar. Pixar is a more computer animation studio whereas Disney are more traditional. DreamWorks animations consist of; Antz, The Road to Egypt, Chicken Run, Shrek series, Shark Tale, Madagascar series, Wallace and Grommit, Over the Hedge, Flushed Away, Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda, Monsters vs Alien and many more including the more recent one out like The Rise of The Guardians and The Croods. They still make movies some movies that they have made are Evolution, The Time Machine, The Ring, Euro Trip, Anchorman, Dreamgirls and many more. Games that Danger Close Games have made (DICE) Medal of Honor series, Clive Barkers Undying, Command and the Conquer series, The Lord of the Rings series and more.

DreamWorks Studios.
DreamWorks Animation

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Warner Bros

Warner Bros is a company that produces films, television and music, however it is starting to move in to the gaming industry. It was founded in 1918 by Jack Warner, Harry Warner, Albert Warner and Sam Warner. This is a major film studio which is world widely known. Warner Bros is also famously known for the cartoons they created in 1930's where they worked with Disney to create the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Warner Bros has made countless amounts of movies. The most latest ones consist of Argo, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Gangster Squad, Beautiful Creatures, Jack and The Giant Slayer, The Great Gatsby and they have plenty more to come such as The Hangover part III, Man Of Steel etc... Warner Bros also have subsidiary companies such as Warner Bros. Animation, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television, New Line Cinema and DC Entertainment.

They are behind television show such as Two and A Half Men, Chuck, Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly and Smallvillle these are all well known television shows, that get really high ratings. Movies that Warner Bros to part in that have done amazingly consist of The Harry Potter series,  The Notebook, The Batman series, The Matrix and The Lord Of The Rings series. These have all blown away the audience and has got brilliant ratings for instance Harry Potter has an average rating of 88% out of 100 which is fantastic they have also done great in the sales department.

Warner Bros Website

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4400 (TV Series)

4400 is a American television show that first broadcast-ed in 2004 and went on until 2007 when it was cancelled. It was created by Scott Peters and Rene Echevarria. The show consists of a 4400 people who was kidnapped over 50 years and then they suddenly reappear all at once without ageing a single day. They come to realize that they have individual powers some of the powers are healing, telekinesis, seeing the future, invisibility and many more. You come to learn that they were kidnapped by future humans who infected them with promicin which caused them to have these powers. The reason for them being kidnapped was that the future people wanted to change course of history and they say that when they do this to the 4400 it will change the future for the better. This show was cancelled due to not enough viewers and money problems. I have seen this show and am sad that it will not be returning as it really interests me with it's story and visuals.

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Telltale Games

I have just recently completed The Walking Dead episodes game and was eager to learn of what other games Telltales games have made so I looked into it. What I found was that Telltales games was founded in 2004 and is based in California. Telltale game work a lot on making episode type games, as they work on releasing episodes per year they are able to bring high quality games to the public. They have been appraised a lot for there works and is said to have made a better Walking Dead game than The Activisions version ' The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct.
Telltale vs Activision

Other games that Telltale have created are Back To the Future, CSI series, Bone series, Texas Hold'em, Jurassic park and plenty more. I have also played the CSI series and have noticed that most of there games are point and click which is the style that I do enjoy using. I do hope that they keep on bringing out more episodes for The Walking Dead and CSI.

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SEGA

SEGA is a Japanese games publisher and developer. In the past SEGA developed it's own brand of games consoles such as the SEGA Mega drive known as the SEGA Genesis in America. But due to financial difficulties SEGA decided to give up on making consoles this happened in 2001. However SEGA still continues to manufacture video games. SEGA definitely made the right choice as they started to gain stronger  earnings from there game, Mushiking a software title in which helped to get SEGA back on the map. SEGAs highest achievement was creating the well known Sonic the Hedgehog. SEGA felt that they needed to create a mascot to help them get back at there rivals (Nintendo) so basically SEGA wanted there own Mario but wanted to make it better. That is where Sonic comes in. Sonic was created in 1991 by Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima. Sonic's super speed blew away the audience as nothing like this was done before so it was a brand new thing that came into the video gaming industry. Sonic single handedly established SEGA as a serious contender in the home console market. He first appeared in Rad Mobile but he didn't have much of a part, however he then became a playable character in Sonic The Hedgehog game. Sonic the Hedgehog game has sold over 80 million copies world wide. This was extremely good for SEGA so they decided to make more. Although Sonic went downhill a bit when it changed to 3D with the Shadow the Hedgehog game but still the quality of Sonic games has gone up again as he is such a loving character with millions of fans, with Sonic Colors and Generations. Sonic The Hedgehog has branched out into other media forms such as comic books and 3 TV shows.  

SEGA assigned Gearbox Software in order to create a new game, Aliens: Colonial Marines. However the game turned out to be a disappointment as many people felt as though they weren't getting their moneys worth. This was shown by it being nothing like the demo and it had many faults and glitches when playing so it was a complete disappointment to the public and SEGA. There was a lot of conflict towards SEGA and Gearbox from fans on who was to blame for this disaster. 

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Lost (TV Series)

Lost is a very popular television series based on survivors of a plane crash on a remote island where nobody can find them. The survivors under go a lot of ups and downs where they lose friends and gain new ones.  Lost was broadcast-ed from 2004 to 2010, it consists of six seasons.  Lost was created by Jeffrey Lieber, J.J.Abrams and Damon Lindelof. Lost was produced by Bad Robot Productions, ABC Studios and Grass Skirt Productions. Lost has received many awards and nominations for example they won Outstanding Drama Series in 2005, Outstanding Directing For a Drama Series 2005 as well as many others.
Lost Awards and nominations

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Supernatural (TV Series)

Supernatural is a US television series about two brothers (Sam and Dean Winchester) who was brought up in a world full of demons and monsters e.g vampires, banshees and werewolves. The brothers hunt down these creatures to stop civilians finding out about them and to stop demons taking over the planet. These brothers are constantly on the road, travelling all over the US. It was first broadcast-ed in 2005 and is still going strong. Warner Bros produces this supernatural show. Many companies are hired in order to create the outstanding special effects such as Entity FX who helps in the visual effects department also including Ivan Hayden as the visual effects supervisor. IMDb give this show a 8.5/ 10 however on TV.com the average rating is 9.1/ 10, I know they are close but I am more lenient towards the 9.1 rating as I do like this show and love the special effects included.

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Ubisoft

Ubisoft is a french games publisher and developer. It has created a number of acclaimed video game titles such as The Assassins Creed series, Prince Of Persia, Rayman and Far Cry. They're also responsible for a number of licensed titles from military novelist Tom Clancy such as Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon and many more. In their early days they targeted young children more than teenagers and adults, making their name with more child friendly games such as Rayman. In recent years they have moved towards more mature games on the back of their success with early games in the Prince of Persia franchise. They are very popular in the gaming community. This is most likely due to the high quality games they produce especially in recent years, games such as Assassin's Creed II and Far Cry 3 both of which hold around a 90 score on Metacritic respectively.

Despite their popularity Ubisoft are no stranger to controversy and are generally viewed less favorably in the PC gaming community due to many reason but primarily because of their implementation of "Always on DRM" seen in games such as Driver: San Francisco and many more that forced players to keep a constant internet connection even when playing single player modes despite the connection not being needed to enhance the experience. This is apparently because Ubisoft games have a "93-95% piracy rate" on PC. However due to severely negative feedback from their customers and the wider gaming community in general Ubisoft patched the requirement out of many of their games before officially ditching the policy in 2012. More recently they have courted controversy due to their treatment of Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Desilets. Many people credit Desilets for helping to put Ubisoft on the map, his work on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time helped establish Ubisoft as a real player in the industry. He then went on to create the Assassin's Creed franchise which is of course Ubisoft's most valuable I.P at this time. After quietly leaving Ubisoft in 2010 he then joined THQ Montreal and was working on a game called "1666" however after THQ's demise in 2012 Ubisoft bought THQ Montreal at auction and the 1666 I.P was included in the deal. Development seemed to be continuing as normal until May 7th 2013 when Desilets once again left the company. This time however Desilets did not go quietly claiming Ubisoft had sacked him without so much as allowing him to say goodbye to his team and that the decision was "baseless and without merit". Ubisoft then Suspended development on the game leading to some people in the industry to suggest that the whole thing was Ubisoft "getting rid of the competition" as 1666 was expected to be similar to the Assassin's Creed franchise.

Ubisoft have numerous studios world wide which has helped them capitalize on Assassin's Creed's success by annualising the series which has brought in the financial clout to back Far Cry 3's development which has paid dividends and cemented Far Cry 3 as another powerful I.P for Ubisoft. All this coupled with the success of the Just Dance franchise with the casual gamer has catapulted Ubisoft to one of the most powerful publishers in the entire industry and with the highly anticipated Watch_Dogs on the horizon the future looks equally bright for the french company. They have come along way from being one small company from Carentoir, Morbihan.

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Walt Disney Animation Studios

Walt Disney Animation Studios is based in Burbank, California. They are a part of Walt Disney Studios. They started off with making drawn animations such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), recently they have been creating computer animations such as Bolt (2008). They are world famous for the characters Mickey and Minnie Mouse which where created in 1928 and appeared in a lot of animation shorts. This is where Walt Disney studios started out. They appeal to audience with their great animations and music that in included in the films. I have seen most of there movies as I love how they are able to bring the characters to life so easily and fluently. They've received support from Pixar (who are a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios.) who help them to make the computer animations. Walt Disney Animation Studios have created countless amounts of films and shorts such as Winnie The Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Pinnochio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, The Lion King, Tarzan, Pacahontis, Mulan, Lilo and Stitch, Chicken Little, Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Wreck It Ralph and many more. They are clearly successful as they wouldn't have been able to have lasted this long if they weren't.

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Harry Potter Series (films)

The Harry Potter Series consists of 8 films about a young boy whose parents pass away whilst he was a baby and his aunt and uncle take bring him up. His upbringing isn't a good one considering his aunt and uncle treat him horribly by making him do things unwillingly. They also locked him in the tiny cupboard under the stair whereas his cousin was treat brilliantly constantly getting a way with anything. However Harry was visited by a giant man who brought the news of him being a wizard and that he must attend Hogwarts. Harry went to Hogwarts and learned of many spells and potions. Harry under goes through torment and  horrific events in which he has to survive through. There are different events in each movie and as you watch them you learn more and more of Harry Potter and his relatives. I absolutely love these films as they are really over the top and have large quantities of heroic moments. These films also consist of plenty of villains for Harry Potter to defeat. I also love the special affects that has gone into the movies it really helps to bring the book series to life.

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Aardman Studios

Aardman Studios is based in the UK in Bristol. This studio creates world famous animations for advertisements and films, they also make short films. It is best known for using clay-animation techniques, although they are starting to move into computer animations. The most famous person that I know who works for Aardman is Nick Park (the creator of Wallace and Grommit). His works have influenced so many people including me. He has influenced me as his works are similar to what I want to do. I also love the way he has made a ordinary man with a dog so appealing to young children and how interesting he has made them. Aardman are also known for there television series such as Shaun the Sheep, Timmy Time, Creature Comforts, Planet Sketch and Canimals. They are very successful in the animation industry as they are able to catch the audiences attention more than most especially since they mainly use stop motion to create these animations. Many people say that stop motion animation is dying out due to technology change and the cost in creating stop motion animation is greater than creating computer animation. In my opinion I believe that stop motion animation isn't going to die out as it creates more feeling in the films as the audience think of them as something you can hold in your hands so it's more believable than a computer generated animation that you will never be able to hold in your hands.  Aardman has create commercials such as the Cadbury creme egg, Cadbury's crunchie, Kelloggs Rice krispies, Quavers, PG Tips, National Help Line and Hotels.com.

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28 Days Later.

28 Days later is a film I really enjoy watching this may be due to the fact that my favourite genre of film is horror movies and this falls into that category. This film starts off with a man waking up to find himself locked in a hospital room, once he escapes from the room he realizes he's alone. He soon sees that people are eating other people and he is on the fight for survival during this apocalypse. He find other survivors who help him to survive and fight for safety. The way that the virus started off was when some chimpanzees where released by an animal right group even though they where warned that they where infected with the Rage virus. I would certainly recommend this film as it has heart racing moments which really get you on your tip toes. They're are different endings and sequences for this film. If you get the DVD version you are able to see them which I was able to. There is also a sequel called 28 Weeks later which I also recommend seeing as it show what has happened 7 months later. There has also been rumors that a third one but I am unsure of when that will be.

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Rockstar Games

Rockstar is a multinational video game developer. Rockstar has studios all over the world such as Canada known as Rockstar Toronto, Rockstar Leeds, Rockstar Japan, Rockstar London, Rockstar New England, Rockstar Lincoln, Rockstar San Diego and Rockstar North. Each studio develop different games and are known for the game that they develop, such as San Diego are known for creating Red Dead Revolver, Red Dead Redemption, they also developed the RAGE engine. The RAGE engine is an engine which enables Rockstar to develop games on many different platforms such as Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii etc...They are known widely for there controversial games such as the GTA series. There is much controversy in the GTA series due to the violent nature of the games and the criminal actions throughout the game. Many people and politicians have said that they influence young children to commit crimes and be violent to other citizens. Personally I believe that this is untrue as the games do have an 18 cert on them so if young children that aren't old enough to purchase the game are being influenced through playing the game must be the getting the game from there parents. So it is the parents at fault for purchasing the game for them and allowing them to play it knowing that they aren't old enough for the game. I really like the freedom that you get when playing the GTA series as not many game give you that. I also enjoy the side mission and achievements that you can get. I would say that one of the best qualities that the later GTA have are that they have achieved outstanding graphic quality in there game that has come further than most games. The GTA series where created by Rockstar North. However GTA: Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories where created by Rockstar Leeds and Rockstar Toronto converted GTA IV and GTA: Episode from Liberty City to PC platform. Rockstar has also helped to develop films such as Football Factory, Red Dead Redemption: The man from Blackwater. They aren't famously known for there  movies it's there games that catch the audiences attention whether it's good or bad attention. Rockstar links to what I am learning now at Leeds College of Art as we have gone into character design and we are learning to create our own game environment in which we are able to move around with props included which are created using Maya software.

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Laika Studios

I first heard about Laika studios when we went to Bradford Animation festival, it's quite surprising really considering I am a huge fan of stop motion animation. I have watch a some of there movies and they are excellent so I am certainly moved by their pieces of work. I have watched Coraline, Paranorman and Corpse Bride I am looking forwards to seeing more from them. They major in Stop motion animation in helping to create films and advertisements. Advertisements that they have worked on consist of Ben and Jerrys, Coca Cola, M&M, Starbucks, Kelloggs and many more. Laika Studios relate to the subject I am studying at the moment as they create advertisements with live action footage and they help to create animations and animated advertisements. They are extremely good at what they do as they have had a good response from both Coraline and Paranorman.

I am pretty sure many of us has seen this advertisement and wouldn't realize that this was made by the same studios that Coraline or Paranorman was made.

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Time Lapse

Time Lapse is a type of stopmotion animation which consists of Photographs taken every certain time e.g every 30 seconds. This is commonly used in landscapes to show time passing. It creates a great effect when it is done in crowded areas as it give the illusion that people are moving very quickly. Whilst I was at college I created my own time lapse and I really enjoyed seeing it come together at the end. Whilst I was editing I noticed bits where it seemed a ghost was there as you where unable to see anyone but objects where still moving form there original positions.
Examples of time lapse footage;

Silicon Valley Timelapse trailer.

Decaying Strawberries Timelapse.

Painting Timelapse

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Cut out animation

I am a real fan of cut ot animation as it is extremely simple and affective, I would like to pursue in making so of my own cut out animation. You make cut out animation by using flat characters, backgrounds etc... It is generally created using card, paper and photographs. The way get you stimulate character movements is exactly like stop motion animation- frame by frame. You are also able to create cut out animation using flash which is done the same way as the non computerize version.
An examples of cut out animations are;

South Park

Charlie and Lola

Blues Clues

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