I haven’t been able to cite my A-level technology notes because the CCEA microsite is currently down, so hopefully I can add them later, along with ICT notes on Human Computer Interaction.
It’s a good thing I keep all the books I read.
Collins, S (2008). The Hunger Games. UK: Scholastic Ltd. p3-454.
Collins, S (2009). The Hunger Games : Catching Fire. UK: Scholastic Ltd. p3-472.
Collins, S (2010). The Hunger Games : Mockingjay. UK: Scholastic Ltd. p3-455.
Feasey, S (2010). Blood Wolf. London: Macmillan Children’s Books. p1-299.
Feasey, S (2009). Changeling. London: Macmillan Children’s Books. p1-277.
Feasey, S (2009). Dark Moon. London: Macmillan Children’s Books. p1-324.
Feasey, S (2010). Demon Games. London: Macmillan Children’s Books. p1-343.
Feasey, S (2011). Zombie Dawn. London: Macmillan Children’s Books. p1-280.
Grant, M (2013). Light. Great Britain: HarperTeen. p1-436.
Grant, M (2012). Fear. Great Britain: HarperTeen. p3-563.
Grant, M (2009). Gone. Great Britain: HarperTeen. p1-569.
Grant, M (2010). Hunger. Great Britain: HarperTeen. p1-600.
Grant, M (2010). Lies. Great Britain: HarperTeen. p1-471.
Grant, M (2011). Plague. Great Britain: HarperTeen. p1-525.
Horrowitz, A (2009). Crocodile Tears. Great Britain: Walker Books. p9-403.
Landy, D (2007). Skulduggery Pleasant. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p7-367.
McGrath, M (2012). Building Android Apps in easy steps. UK: In Easy Steps Ltd. p7-192.
McGrath, M (2011). Java in easy steps. 4th ed. UK: In Easy Steps Ltd. p8-185.
McKenzie, S (2010). Blood Ransom. Great Britain: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd. p3-418.
McKenzie, S (2008). Blood Ties. Great Britain: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd. p3-438.
McKenzie, S (2011). Double-Cross. Great Britain: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd. p1-229.
McKenzie, S (2011). Hunted. Great Britain: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd. p1-269.
McKenzie, S (2010). The Hostage. Great Britain: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd. p1-244.
McKenzie, S (2009). The Rescue. Great Britain: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd. p1-293.
McKenzie, S (2010). The Set Up. Great Britain: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd. p1-264.
McManus (2012). Web Design in easy steps. 5th ed. UK: In Easy Steps Ltd. p10-240.
Muchamore, R (2008). The Recruit. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Hodder Children’s Books. p1-325.
Muchamore, R (2008). Class A. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Hodder Children’s Books. p329-619.
Napier, J (2011). GCSE Biology for CCEA. 6th ed. Great Britain: Hodder Education. p58-60.
Patterson, J (2008). The Dangerous Days of Daniel X. Great Britain: Doubleday. p7-267.
Patterson, J (2010). The Dangerous Days of Daniel X : Demons and Druids. Great Britain: Young Arrow. p9-243.
Patterson, J (2008). The Dangerous Days of Daniel X : Watch the Skies. Great Britain: Young Arrow. p3-272.
Riordan, R (2010). Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero. Great Britain: Puffin Books. p1-374.
Riordan, R (2005). Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Great Britain: Puffin Books. p1-374.
Rose, M (2006). Double Check. 2nd ed. London: Kingfisher. p5-214.
Rose, M (2007). Final Lap. 2nd ed. London: Kingfisher. p5-239.
Rose, M (2005). Framed. London: Kingfisher. p5-223.
Rose, M (2005). Lost Bullet. London: Kingfisher. p5-204.
Rose, M (2006). Roll Call. 2nd ed. London: Kingfisher. p5-213.
Ryan, C (2006). Black Gold. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Random House. p1-325.
Ryan, C (2005). Blood Money. Great Britain: Random House. p1-327.
Ryan, C (2005). Fault Line. Great Britain: Random House. p1-343.
Ryan, C (2006). Flash Flood. Great Britain: Random House. p1-289.
Ryan, C (2003). Hostage. Great Britain: Random House. p1-279.
Ryan, C (2004). Hunted. Great Britain: Random House. p1-338.
Ryan, C (2004). Rat-Catcher. 2nd ed. Great Britain: Random House. p1-264.
Ryan, C (2004). Red Centre. Great Britain: Random House. p1-339.
Ryan, C (2002). Survival. Great Britain: Random House. p1-296.
Ryan, C (2009). Twister. Great Britain: Random House. p1-274.
Ryan, C (2005). Untouchable. Great Britain: Random House. p1-343.
Ryan, C (2008). Vortex. Great Britain: Random House. p1-272.
Scarrow, A (2010). Time Riders. London: Puffin Books. p1-424.
Scarrow, A (2010). Time Riders : Day of the Predator. London: Puffin Books. p1-432.
Scarrow, A (2010). Time Riders : The Doomsday Code. London: Puffin Books. p1-437.
Shan, D (2002). Allies of the Night. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p181-359.
Shan, D (2006). Bec. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p7-261.
Shan, D (2007). Blood Beast. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p9-261.
Shan, D (2000). Cirque Du Freak. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p13-184.
Shan, D (2009). Dark Calling. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p7-215.
Shan, D (2005). Demon Thief. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p7-274.
Shan, D (2008). Death’s Shadow. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p9-237.
Shan, D (2007). Demon Apocalypse. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p9-239.
Shan, D (2009). Hell’s Heroes. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p9-235.
Shan, D (2002). Hunters of the Dusk. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p11-176.
Shan, D (2003). Killers of the Dawn. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p363-553.
Shan, D (2005). Lord Loss. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p9-261.
Shan, D (2004). Lord of the Shadows. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p220-402.
Shan, D (2006). Slawter. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p8-254.
Shan, D (2004). Sons of Destiny. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p403-591.
Shan, D (2003). The Lake of Souls. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p7-219.
Shan, D (2000). The Vampire’s Assistant. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p191-351.
Shan, D (2002). The Vampire Prince. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p335-488.
Shan, D (2001). Trials of Death. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p169-328.
Shan, D (2000). Tunnels of Blood. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p357-510.
Shan, D (2001). Vampire Mountain. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p9-163.
Shan, D (2008). Wolf Island. Great Britain: HarperCollins Children’s Books. p7-222.
Stockley, C (2008). The Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Biology. Great Britain: Usborne Publishing Ltd. p84-85.
Seeing is believing – and if anyone has a complaint about the picture being at an angle, well, the living room is only so wide so it was interesting trying to stay still enough whilst twisted around like several strands of spaghetti on a fork.
We had decided we wanted a multiple choice game, and each choice would effect the outcome that the player would experience.
But we had no actual plan as to how it was going to work.
Since we really wanted to not have the same problem of everything being left to the last minute as we did with the title sequence.
Despite that, nothing was happening. Edward wanted to wait for everyone to be there before any decisions were made, and since it was Thursday, we had to wait for their Life Drawing class to finish.
It seemed a bit pointless for us just to just be sitting there, so I decided to walk up to my school to see if I could get any notes from my ICT teacher on Human Computer Interaction which we had studied at A-level.
I managed to walk there (a distance of 1.1 miles), saw my ICT teacher who told me their printer was broken and she would e-mail me the notes, found a penny on her floor (which I got to keep) and then went round to see my Technology teacher too.
By the time I did that, and returned back to the university- nothing had changed.
2.2 miles – roughly 41 minutes – and about an hour talking…
So I decided to try and make some sense of this game and then present the idea to the group to see if we could come to a decision.
I worked it out mathematically so that each person would have three scenes to draw.
Calculations
This original plan was so that I could see how the different decisions would split up to go to different scenes and as the game progressed then the outcome would be the same despite the users choice to result in two final outcomes, rather than continuing to grow exponentially.
I thought that we could possibly just change the text in the scenes so that it explains why the outcome occurs from the decision.
Then, I started trying to plan out what decisions could lead to the various outcomes.
Below was my attempts at coming up with different scenarios.
Planning
Who could draw what
When the others came back we started to divide up the scenes, so that each person could draw three each.
I did also have another page where Sorcha and I tried to work out the logistics of the game, (you can see the original plan on the A4 page blue tacked to the whiteboard), and how the links would work because there was a few inconsistencies and that’s in my sketchbook.
So, below are two further photoshop creations. Sort had broken up glass to create an alphabet that had a similar appearance to crystals, so I tried to do something similar in photoshop.
Original Creation
This is the first image that I created. The broken glass was a free image to download off of tinyurl, so I got that and then typed out “Brothers In Arms” (the name of Dylan’s poem), and rasterised the layer.
I then used the polygon lasso tool, to select sections of each character, then moved them away using the move tool.
Then, I duplicated the layer, selected all the fragments added shadow and an outline.
Using our colour scheme
This was me trying to incorporate our sepia and blue colour scheme. Upon reflection, the shadow seems to strong and the background colour is actually more orange.
I used a yellow layer and brown layer with a grain to try and make it look old along with a gradient which goes from left to right and sort of works with the different shades of blue in the letters.
So this is some more experiments that I did with the “negative” version of my typography. I left a space available for Sorcha to insert her font with the lines of Dylan’s poem. However, as I said before we ended up disregarding this idea.
I really just experimented with different filters in photoshop, the main aim was to create a good strong contrast between the blue typography and the line of writing which we didn’t insert. The inserted lines of poetry (written by Dylan) were going to be in focus to ensure that the audience knew what they had to focus on.
When Sorcha and Christian played about with fairy lights in the bowl of water I had an idea. Christian had flipped the video into negative- which I thought looked really awesome so I decided to do that with the typography that I created.
My idea was that the typography could appear and flash between transitions (it looked pretty cool) but the group decided to go in another direction.
The video below illustrates the idea that I had, and also, it incorporated Dylan’s poem about the world. The quote from David Carson in Helvetica “don’t confuse legibility with communication” was in my head, so I wanted to depict the typography of the crystal people to reflect their physical capabilities to actually write something down. I deliberately avoided creating a font that was over-the-top ‘fancy’ so it didn’t have swirling and looping components, instead it was rather jagged.
Whilst a more formal and elegant typeface would reflect the crystal race’s higher intelligence, it did not reflect their barbaric culture of battling to the death, and also since their hands are rather clumsy in appearance, I also figured it would be difficult for them to actually write in an elegant fashion.
I had the idea that we could perhaps compose all of our images from text – the saying “a picture paints a thousand words” was swimming about my head- so that’s what I attempted to do.
i ended up having to put colour behind the text because it was making my eyes feel like falling out because the contrast was too strong.
When trying to create a backing track for the title sequence I had several influences of artists/songs which I like.
There was Sigor Ros (an Icelandic band that sings in a made up language but still conveys the emotion of the song), there was also “Beyond” and “Stargate” by Epic Orchestral music (which I found on youtube and as you can probably guess is composed solely from instruments) then there is “If you say so” by the incredible Lea Michele (which conveys the pain and sadness that she feels through her lyrics).
We think that’s it is really quite funny and hopefully, it’ll go over well. Especially as it ended up being several seconds short and we had to stretch the scenes to fit the 90 seconds.
Animation Talk-ation 