Blog Evaluation (whole unit) - Unit 19 Task 4B

During the second semester we had to start a blog on blogger. The first task was to create an infographic talking about raster and vector images, pixels, bit depths, colour space, image capture and image optimizing.

This was the final product for the task. I was very happy with the result. I tried to aim for a simplistic design while still giving out a lot of information. All in all I was very happy with the result.

I decided to change my banner three times including layouts. The banners where a result of experimenting using Photoshop and a small inside joke for the last one.












For task three we had to create three banners for a mediacast blog. This was rather challenging for me as I tried my best to keep the banners with a media theme. I didn't quite like the final result as I felt I didn't quite accomplish what I set out to do.

As part of task three we also had to create three posters. I again aimed for a simplistic design with as little wording as possible while still conveying all the information needed.

The poster on the left is the best one in my opinion and the one I'm most happy with.

This unit was quite interesting. I learned the basics of Photoshop and Illustrator and with further experimenting got pretty good in both of them. I acquired knowledge in web design which is an important tool to have especially if you want to create a website to advertise yourself and put upload work on it.

One thing I wish to remark on is that I wish the unit delved deeper into Photoshop and Illustrator as you are limited to the things you can create without learning advanced techniques.

Questionnaire - Strada Stretta

Occupation:    Student    ____                       Worker  ____

1.      In your opinion, is the advert of a good quality?

Yes ___                 No____

2.      In general, what did you understand from the advert?

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

3.      From 1 to 10, how effective do you think it is? (10 being the highest)

Why?

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

4.      Do you think the message interacted clearly with the audience?

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

5.      In your opinion, do you think it has a specific target audience?

_____________________________________________________________

6.      A. Would you read ‘Strada Stretta; It-Triq li Darba Xeghlet il-Belt’ after watching this advert?

Yes___                                        No____

B. Why?

_____________________________________________________________

7.      What impact does the editing of this advert leave on the audience?

Positive Impact___                                  Negative Impact___

8.      A. Would you require to change or criticize something from the advert?

Yes__                                    No   ___

B. If yes, what would it be?

______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

Filming Cancelled

Yesterday we were scheduled to film although the weather prevented us from doing so. It is very hard to anticipate when it is going to rain when booking the camera days in advance especially when the rest of the week was all sunny.

We decided to go location scouting instead and plan to shots carefully so when the day finally came to go filming we could quickly set-up within wasting to find the best place to shoot.

We are currently discussing when to book the camera again. I am hopeful that we will get the camera soon enough and if the weather is on our side finish shooting everything.

Mediacast Proposal

Site Map

Colour Scheme
The colour scheme will have some dark green and dark yellow but mostly have white and different shades of black. This is because black (in background) and white (text) fit very nicely together but if it will be left simply at black and white it would be too plain, therefore dark green and dark yellow, which are the MCAST colours, will be mixed in to add that little amount of appeal.


The Banner
The banner will be flash animated.
The Mediacast logo will be a still image and a flash animation made around it.

The Background
The background will be very simple so as to not be tiring on the eye.
Possibly two shades of dark grey

New Banner

I apologize for not changing my banner every other week as a said before but I've been very busy recently,
I did however find some time to make this new banner, I hope you like it.

Like always if anyone has new banner ideas feel free to comment and tell me of your ideas.

mediacast Banners

These are my final banners for the mediacast blog:

Posters

These are my final posters for the mediacast blog:

Storyboard

Book: Title:     Strada Stretta - It - triq li darba xeghlet il-Belt

          Author: George Cini

This is the storyboard for Unit 30 (Advertisement Production for TV)

This is the old storyboard, a new, updated storyboard will be uploaded shortly.

The Mechanic

The Mechanic is a remake of the 1972 film of the same name. It stars Jason Statham, who has a habit of making these types of films, as Arthur Bishop and Ben Foster, was relatively unknown before this film, as Steve McKenna. Arthur is a professional assassin who specializes in making his hits look like accidents, suicides, or the acts of petty criminals. The film revolves around teaching Steve McKenna how to become an assassin like him after his father had been killed and finds himself with nothing in the world.

This film was very good movie and one any action film lover should watch. It is hard to mock this film because not much was wrong with it. It is a shame that most people will never hear of it because it was far from being the best promoted or hyped film of the year.

Rating 8/10

Jerry Maguire

Jerry Maguire is a film released in 1996 staring Tom Cruise as Jerry Maguire, a 35 year old sports agent. Suffering from stress and a guilty conscience he writes a mission statement which prompts the management to fire Jerry Maguire. He tried frantically to secure all his clients but a long talk with Rod Tidwell, one of his clients, hampers his chance of doing so. Upon leaving the company for the last time he says that he is going to start his own company and urges people to join him but only Dorothy Boyd (Renee Zellweger) agrees to join him. From this point on the film takes a whole new turn, but you will have to watch it to know how.

This film was different to what we are used to seeing because such film will not make a hit at the box office and therefore are not produced. Although I had a hard time following the story line it was still very enjoyable to watch and I would watch it again if I had to chance to better understand the story.

Rating 5/10

Super Commercials 2011

While I was searching for some adverts for an assignments, I can across some adverts which are part of the adverts broadcast during the Super Bowl, a championship games of the National Football League (NFL), these are some of the best advert release in the year and Americans even get to vote which one they likes best.

I will post some of the best adverts...

Jack

Jack is quite an old film now, in fact it was released in 1996. This movie stars Robin Williams as Jack Powell a 10 year old kid who looks 40 because he suffered from an exaggerated form of Werner syndrome, an aging disease. We follow Jack as he goes about living the life of a 10 year old.

This was a very touching movie. Although not director, Francis Ford Coppola's best work this movie still uses excellent camera techniques to tell a story and after all the message of the movie was clear and inspiring.

Rating 6.5/10

Advert Composition

Different techniques are used in adverts in order to bring out a certain characteristic!

In this case they used a comedic situation to go along with the celebrity endorsement in order to interest the viewer, and leaving the main message hidden at all time until the last moment!

In this advert there are some elements of product placement, in this case the "acer" netbook used in this advert.

Then finally the main message/focus of this advert is reviled...

T-Mobile

The Fighter

The Fighter is a biographical dram film staring Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg as Dicky and Micky respectively. This film also stars Amy Adams as Charlene Flaming and Melissa Leo who portrayed Alice Ward, the mother of Dicky and Micky, she manages to leave a chill by her performance and shows how far an actor or actress can take a role.

This film is based of a true story, and upon meeting with the real life version of who the actors and actresses were going portray they were all motivated and give the performance they did. Although this movie was nominated for several awards I feel it was a little over hyped, but still deserving of the awards won. I would recommend watching this film just to watch Melissa Leo's stunning performance the story is also a very inspiring and unfortunately these kinds of films are few and far between.

Rating 7.5/10

Infographic

Vector graphics
These use geometrical objects such as points, lines, curves, and polygons to form an image. Vector graphic files store the lines, shapes and colours that make up an image as a mathematical formulae.

Raster graphics
This uses a rectangular grid of pixels or points of colour, viewable via a monitor, paper or other display medium, unlike vector graphics there is a maximum amount of resolution a raster graphic can reach before it still start to pixelate.

A pixel is the smallest addressable screen element in  raster graphics.

Colour space is an abstract mathematical model describing the way colours can be represented as tuples of numbers (typically as three or four values). When defining a colour space the usual reference standard is the CIELAB colour spaces, which was specifically designed to encompass all colours the average human can see.

Bit depth is the number of bits used to represent the colour of a single pixel in a bitmapped image. High colour depth gives a broader range of distinct colours.

Optimizing is a process of optimizing pictures to balance between file size and picture quality. Saving in JPEG vs GIF will get you a better looking picture but will also make the file size bigger. This is why GIF is the preferred format for the web. Image will load quicker since the file size is smaller but a little photo quality is sacrificed.

Image capture is not possible without the use of a digital camera or a film camera. The technology behind a digital camera is a light sensor and a program which is embedded right into the circuit board of the camera. A Charged Coupled Device or CCD for short takes light energy and converts it to electrical energy. The firmware knows what each specific charge means and translates it to information that includes the colour and other qualities of the light that can ccd picked up. It does this using pixels. Each pixel comprised of three basic colours that can be produced is amazing indeed. This is known as a Bayer filter. Without this technology digital camera would never have existed and film cameras would still be common practice to date. Film cameras use similar principle to the human eye but exposes it to photographic film which stores the image. Without these two methods of capturing images, we would not be able to capture the beautiful pictures we do today.

Black Swan

Black Swan is a film released at the end of 2010. It revolves around Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet. Nina Sayers, portrayed by Natalie Portman, is a ballerina dancing with a prestigious New York Ballet company. She lives with her overbearing mother Erica, a failed dancer turned amateur artist, who tries to control much of Nina's life.

This is one of few films I've watched in my life that embodies the thriller part of a psychological thriller. It is amazing that by just adding hallucinations to the story line the film was made a hundred times better. I hope to see more of these kind of films throughout the year.

Rating 9/10

Buried

Buried is a 2010 thriller film staring Ryan Reynolds. Paul Conroy wakes up to find he is buried alive with only a Zippo lighter and a BlackBerry. He slowly starts to piece things together and gradually he remembers that he and several other convoys were ambushed by insurgents. Paul gets a phone call from one of the insurgents but you will have to watch the rest of the film to know what the insurgent said and how the film ends.

Buried is a film I really got into and although there is only one actor in the film it still has more twists than most other films most of which will leave you speechless.

Rating 10/10

Illustrator

Today we were given an template on Illustrator and told to follow the steps so we would learn how to use the pen tool. I can say that after completing all the six shapes I have learned to use the pen tool rather well.

True Grit

True Grit is remake of the 1969 film staring John Wayne. The film starts off with the narrator telling us that her father was murdered by Tom Chaney when she was fourteen. She chooses to hire Rooster Cogburn to find Tom Chaney who has fled. Join Mattie Ross, Rooster Cogburn and Texas Ranger LaBoeuf on their quest to hunt down Tom Chaney and I am sure the ending will not disappoint.

This movie is probably the only one of its kind being released this year. The dialog is a bit hard to understand sometimes but this is not enough to deter you from enjoying this movie. This movie is one hundred percent authentic (costumes, scenery, etc...) so any western lover will definitely love this movie

Rating 8/10

The King's Speech

The King's Speech is a film released recently, it starts off with Prince Albert speaking at the close of the 1925 British Empire Exhibition. He fails to finish the speech because of his stammering. His wife Elizabeth    persuades him to go see Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist. Lionel Logue then tries to help Prince Albert overcome his stammering but you will have to watch the film to know if he succeeds or not.

The King's Speech is one of the best films so far this year . It has been nominated for fourteen BAFTA, twelve Academy Awards and seven Golden Globes and I have no problem seeing why. Though this is not a film everyone will like, anyone who likes to watch drama films will definitely like this one.

Rating 9.5/10

Photoshop #1

Photo retouching

Before

After

I made a parody of this advert starting Shaun and his mobile as part of a task

This is the first banner I made which I like a lot, this was the result of me experimenting with liquify

Im going to do my best to try to change the banner every other week, stay tuned for more!

Bicycle Thieves

Bicycle Thieves is a film released in 1948, it revolves around an unemployed man called Antonio Ricci and his son living during the Great Depression in Italy. During his first day at work Antonio gets his bike stolen by a young thief. We follow Antonio as he goes around Rome in search of his bike.

Sometimes subtitles did not match what was being said and people who do not know Italian will have no choice but to use subtitles since this movie is only in Italian. All in all Bicycle Thieves was an enjoyable watch but since I had to read the subtitles I found myself looking more at the subtitles than at the movie.

Rating 5.5/10

Info Graphics

Infographics are a way to provide information or data by using graphic visual representations. Infographics are used in several places like, signs, maps, journalism writing and education.

The about example aims to teach people about coffee with the least amount of wording possible. Although a very small picture it clearly explains some possible mixtures of coffee. It also tell people how to pronounce the word.

Welcome!!

Hello guys and girls, welcome to my blog, here I will be posting movie reviews and task given by our lecturers. Anyway, enjoy your stay here.