The Blog Of Heather-Louise

Web Identity 2

2010-04-30T03:17:00.000-07:00

Through looking at other peoples blogs I have found that the best way to promote your self and to push your work is to post something daily, for example the founder of a company called design seeds posts a piece of graphic design work daily to capture peoples imagination, thousands of people look at her work daily, then when they are looking for a graphic designer Design Seeds is the first choice without question. This is how Design Seeds is making money and finding clients.

http://www.designseeds.com/

A similar example of this is: http://www.dailyportrait.co.uk/

The artist behind the blog posts a portrait of someone daily to his blog, when you click on one of the images it redirects you to his etsy store, (shopping cart facility) and this is how he finds clients.

However through just having a blog it is difficult to generate site traffic therefore they use another social media platform such as Facebook.

The founder of design seeds has linked there facebook and blogger account so that when you click on an image on facebook you are automatically redirected to the blog.

Final Show

2010-04-20T03:02:00.000-07:00

The Final show is a showcase of all of the work completed by CDC students over the course of their foundation degree.
This year I will be taking part.
In todays session as a year group we sat and decided how we would like to present our work and what work needs to be done to be ready on time.
As a group we have decided to showcase our studies with three computers, the computers will all share the same computer system and will allow visitors to the show to browse through all of our works.
We will also be requiring a large board each to showcase print based work, these boards will stand behind the computers and will hopefully attract attention therefore we will all be using our brightest, boldest works.
Due to the computers been on a desk this creates the opportunity to have an area to leave business cards and postcards which will hopefully be picked up by guests to the show.

Proposed programs for the computer system:
* Power Point
* Presi.com
* Adobe Flash
* Adobe presenter 7

through looking at all of these systems we decided that presi and powerpoint where to basic and that we should use Adobe Presenter 7 due to it almost combing Adobe Flash.

Due to the computer system needing a selection of all our works we have split ourselves into groups to create a smoother and easier process.
Rich will be creating the computer system,
Chris and I will be creating promotional material such as posters, postcards and business cards.
I will also be in charge of print based works, this means that I will have to organize works to be printed and mounted onto the display boards.

All members of the group will be choosing a minimum of 4 selected works for the presentation system (computers) and will be sending them to Rich with captions and possible text.

All members will be emailing me their works which they want upon the display boards, so that I can sort them for printing.

My Chosen works for screen based presentation:
* Photo story - digital ghosts
* Title Sequence
* My Video Diary 3d - including 3d webcam attatchment
* Website Designs?
* Linear project - Stop animation Ballerina.
* Online Portfolio

* A Level Art show - video outcome (poss when finished)

My Chosen works for print based presentation: (presentation boards)
*Photography - butterflies
* Packaging (sweetshop)
* Logo Designs (sweetshop, video diary,)
* Illustrator work
* 2d bar coding -link to online portfolio
* I phone app designs?
* webcam game designs - in dvd cases? - attach to board.

We have also decided to have a second table which will display our A3 portfolios.
-we may also be creating miniatures of these as brochures which people can take away.

Due to some of our work been threaded live from Photosynth - a microsoft only program we will have to use PC's as computers instead of Imac's which would have looked better from an aesthetic point of view.

So that we can all stay in contact out of college we will be creating a Facebook group which only people relevant to the project can join and view content so that we have a communication device which shows our design process.

Equiptment needed:
3 Pc's (1f088??)
3 presentation boards (one each)
2 Tables - one for A3 folders the other for computers

Printing

3d webcam

My tasks:
* Correcting spellings in my A3 folder and re printing them,
* Desiging a poster to attract visitors to the event
* Creating a presentation system for the computers
* Designing a business card/postcard for people to take away.
* Designing a brouchure for people to take away

I have decided to create my brouchure in PDF which will allow me to create direct links to some of my websites and to my online portfolio as alot of my works are screen based, this means that they will most likely be given away on disks.
Because I will have DVD's for people to take away I will present the disk cover itself (not box cover) as a business card displaying a piece of my design work and my name and contact details.
Because I am giving away a disk I will also be creating a small disclaimer in a seperate PDF document which will protect me from law suits if someone comes across an infected link.

Budgeting
Because I will be creating DVD brouchures and disk covers I will need to look into budgeting for this. Not everyone will want to take away a business card or a disk therefore I will not be making one for every visitor as it will become expensive.
Because of this I will also create a small business card with my name and website address to my online portfolio, the card will also feature a piece of design work. This means my DVD's will be avaliable on a first come serve basis.
DVD Price - Tesco 70p for 5 single disks without jewel cases.
Sticker Price - pound land - £1 for 30 disk covers.
Printing costs - 10p per sheet (two disk covers per sheet =10p for two disks)

These are the best value products and are ideal as they will only be holding a pdf brouchure.

Platform 2010 Gaming Show

2010-03-30T01:18:00.000-07:00

We attended the first gaming showcase by Platform in Hull. The event is held at the Hull Truck Theatre, and consists of seminars and stalls ran by gaming and new media company's.

The first seminar we attended was on copyright law and protecting your intellectual property, from this I've learnt to send confidentiality agreements to publishers or any who externally involved with my work who may exploit my designs, ideas or finished pieces of work.
I think this was valuable as I may be able to make use of it in the future when distributing or publishing my work.

Another seminar I found interesting was on character creation and building, where we were told not to base characters on real people as reality isn't always as interesting and dramatic enough. We where also told to look at star signs and horoscopes to find personality traits and to look at all elements about a character before even writing their script such as Character X moved from France when his parents divorced, and this sparked X behavior and X trait.

Some other seminars I found un helpful/ rather irrelevant were by Kingston Communications and Hull University this is because they were presenting in effect a 20 minute advert about their service or their courses which when you look at the 2010 platform website the whole event promotes development for gamers.

A Level

2010-03-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

As a group we will be coming up with advertising and promotional material for the college A Level show, the event runs between 22 June - 29 June annually.
The show is to represent the completion of studies by Art, Design and Craft students at York College. It is a celebration of work from the range of Art and Design courses which will reflect what work they have completed to a variety of visitors to hopefully help them to progress to the next step in their careers.
As a group we decided to draw out all of our ideas for the show such as logo designs, poster designs and more.
We were all in agreement that we should have a website where guests can view parts of the exhibition and book tickets.
Other ideas amongst the group were:

Ticket design - to gain entry to the event

Poster design - for advertising

CD - with promotional material

TV Screens near art works - these screens could describe the artists journey and concept for their finished piece

Interactive 3d boards - guests could find their chosen artist through the touch screen board.

Brochures - with images and a map of the event

Social networking - networking and branching out to potential guests

Short interviews with students about their work

We then broke down who should do which tasks and created small sub groups to create the website, these were

-HTML/Coding

-Design

-Content/uploading

I am in the sub group for content uploading and will be creating videos for the show.

These videos will allow students to explain their inspirations and concepts which drove them to their finished piece. This will either be web based so that guests can view artworks/a taster of the show through our website or the videos will be screen based, viewable on monitors next to their art work.

I will be continuing this work in a separate blog: The A Level Show Blog

Linear work progress:

2010-02-13T02:49:00.000-08:00

I have now photographed the dancer dancing in front of the blue screen, edited it and created these two video demos to show progress, realise which speed I want the video to play at and to find any flaws such as facial expression and left over bits of blue screen:

Slow motion video - 0.64 of a second:
If unavaliable please visit Youtube

and again but sped up a bit 0.24 of a second.

If unavaliable please visit Youtube

__________________________________________

I then went on to look at different filters for the video such as an aged effect:

If unavaliable please visit Youtube

I like the thought of the clip been aged as it fits well with the stop animation because it is quite jumpy.

If unavaliable please visit Youtube

I removed the aging filters to see which other filters added to the video aesthetically.
I decided to put a “brightness decrease” on every other photograph, this created almost a tea stained look and added to the aged look with out been pixelated.

If unavaliable please visit Youtube

Creative Crafting Magazine

2010-02-01T04:02:00.001-08:00

Creative Crafting Magazine is an online magazine created by

issuu.com

find my article :)

Little People - Slinkachu with Hornby playsets

2010-01-06T05:22:00.000-08:00

Slinkachu is a photographer from London who uses the Hornby characters (often purchased for usage with model railways) to create humorous scenarios he takes a photograph of the characters and before taking another zoomed out. He often leaves them at the locations, they are so small you would probably walk past them and not notice them.
Some examples of his work are below:

As you can see from the first image (above) the second image has been taken in a puddle by the side of the harbor.
Check out some more of his works here: Little people blog where you will find endless humorous photographs.
He has created so many that he has recently released a book containing these works (see image below)

In class we had ago at creating our own versions of this photographic technique,

Pictured is a Hornby character falling down a plug hole (first photo) and in the second picture a Hornby character who has just built the mother of all snow people!

Creating Augumented Reality Playing Cards

2009-12-27T13:17:00.000-08:00

I used some of the images which came with the free download of Unifeye Design Demo - the augumented reality viewer/creator to create some game cards in the style of the original pokemon cards.

This is a concept which I think will catch on.

If you show this card to your webcam (providing you have the Unifeye Design Demo installed) it will play.

3d animations!

2009-12-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

Here I created some stop animation animations with my brother. He is hugely inspired by the Wallace and Gromet cartoons and constantly designs charicters for animations. I used my 3d webcam (featured in the pictures below) to photograph his works before uploading them to the pc and editing them in a free software called 'the anaglyph maker' this overlaps the images and puts a red and cyan outline on them. This can be seen in the final image (which you will need anaglyph glasses to preview) I used the double camera vision rather than the 3d image maker on the webcam so that I didnt have to focus the camera everytime.

Issuu - online publishing

2009-12-20T07:21:00.000-08:00

Mobile magazines
Thanks to issuu http://issuu.com/
You can create your own virtual magazine or newspaper. And best of all you can upload all of your content so that your website viewers don’t have to download the .doc or pdf files anymore! This means you can create professional looking magazines such as the one below

And what’s more thanks to http://m.issuu.com/apps this whole thing just got mobile! So you can access the magazines through your mobile phones.

Critical Studies

2009-12-04T00:35:00.000-08:00

Have been posting my Critical studies project on another blog
exclusive to that project!! :)
The link is below:

http://criticalstudiesproject.blogspot.com/

Platform studio

2009-12-03T15:16:00.000-08:00

Have just stumbled across a great offer with platform studio where if you add three comments to your blog they will give you another $10 Dollars off!!!!!
Great News!!!

but the price goes back up to $49 on Christmas day at midnight (maybe state time)
http://pstudio.firstproductions.com/save

Platform studio

2009-12-03T15:14:00.000-08:00

Just found an amazing offer on Platform studio where they will give you the full version for just $19.95 DOLLARS!!! thats only like £12
the full version is great you can save share and sell games!

its great because its normally around $49 dollars! so thats like 60% off =)
smiles all round!

Thinking of incorporating this into my course work for tv&film production
under interactivity... see past posts!
http://pstudio.firstproductions.com/save

Platform studio

2009-12-03T15:13:00.000-08:00

I am loving platform studio
- its a really easy way to create platform games,
to date I only have the demo version but cant wait to upgrade this christmas Visit
http://pstudio.firstproductions.com/save now

Copy Right & Remix Culture

2009-12-02T02:53:00.000-08:00

Copy Right and Remix Culture

Over the last 9/10 weeks I have been looking at remix culture,
which is what you get if you mix any clips together to create a new one
for instance the econ advert which is made completely form recycled film clips
as are many documentaries on natural disasters which use clips from the public domain (the general public) to show real life encounters from events.

However its not always this simple!
In fact there is so much controversy, debate and dispute surrounding it it can be extremely confusing.

There are parties for and against the usage of remix culture which is what I have been investigating before creating my own remix culture advert/film clip.

I will be posting research from the argument For and Against here on my blog however I will not be posting any of my research or own troubles in this investigation to protect myself from breaching these copyright laws and entering this dispute.

By keeping this information in a word document which will remain unposted I am complying with an act of fair use and cannot be sued!

Non-Linear Project

2009-11-28T12:42:00.000-08:00

http://digitalghosts.webs.com/
See the above link for a copy of our brief, our research and planning.

For this group project we had to create a non-linear product, which would be interactive and serve a purpose, as a group we mapped out some ideas for flash websites and platform games but decided to focus on York’s historical past for an interactive product, after looking into the history of a couple of locations we soon found that our city had been reputed one of the most haunted cities in the world due to its bloody past of battles and wars, we looked deeper into a few locations and found out how they are commonly used as feature landmarks in ghost walks for tourists. This gave us a perfect idea for a creative product which could be used as a feature application on a website for someone hosting a ghost walk to show visitors the locations which they would be visiting.
As we were working in a group I decided it would be a good idea to create a small website where we could all contribute our ideas and keep all of the work in one place otherwise we could have ended up with several versions of the same project.
On the site we set the tasks which had to be achieved and when they had to be achieved by, as well as who they would be carried out by. We did this through the form of a list and a calendar which acted like a schedule.
My assigned tasks where Film editing for podcast, Photography, research and web development.
Therefore I was administrator for the website and had to make sure that all of the work was uploaded and up to date however we made sure that there was a posting area and profile space for each member in the group so that they could add information about themselves and use the website like a progress diary so that other members knew what work was left to be carried out and could help other users when they became stuck.
I also looked into different ghost hunts around York and what locations they visit on their ghost tours. Searches carried out showed that the York Minster and St Marys Abbey where the most popular therefore they would be the feature locations for our application.
I found out that the York Minster is supposed to be haunted by an army officer, aswell as a couple of sightings of other ghostly beings and the barking of a ghostly dog. I also found it interesting that the Minster hasn’t always stood on the grounds of which it does today. It was in fact built in the 7th century out of wood for the baptism of Edwin of Northumbria on a different site. It wasn’t until the year 1220 when the Minster we know today started to take place.
St Marys abbey on the other hand is said to be haunted by many monks resulting in allot of audible phenomena and has stood its ground since 1088 the ruins today are what’s left since the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry the eighth around 1540.
We decided on these locations because of their historic pasts combined with their reputed phenomena.
Since deciding on the locations we had to decide on what the application could do, we had various ideas for small games and information features however we didn’t think they were quite suitable for what we were trying to achieve.
It was then we thought about visual interactive applications such as 360 maps of the locations such as the ones you see on hotel websites so that you can have a look around the room before your visit. However we wanted to add animations in.
We looked into the big software programs commonly used for creating 360 visuals. Such as Paper3d, Rich, who had been assigned the task of looking into the 3d software’s and development looked at some tutorials and decided the software could possibly take months to program and learn, therefore we started to look for an alternative which would better fit to our deadline.
By coincidence we stumbled across the software from Microsoft: Photosynth this software analyses the photographs which you have taken and automatically makes a 360 map out of the images. This software was perfect so we ran out with the cameras to the locations to get the necessary images.
Every member of the group tried making a simple Photosynth using the photographs; we found that the photographs for St Marys Abbey didn’t work as well as the York Minsters images I think this is because the abbey is now the ruins of what once stood. Meaning that allot of the angles and arches look very alike, confusing the automated software. Therefore for the final application the Minster would look better, examples of these can be found on the made website.
The problem was that by using this software we wouldn’t be able to add moving animations of ghosts therefore we decided that we would have to Photoshop them in. We did this by looking through photographs and cropping them as if to zoom in at certain parts. I took an image of a monk, changed the colouring to grey and white and made the layer transparent creating a ghostly image. Once put back into Photosynth and rendered out the ‘ghosts’ looked unrealistic against the coloured back ground therefore we turned all of the images into black and white before trying again.

http://digitalghosts.webs.com/

Blogging

2009-11-28T11:17:00.000-08:00

I have been looking at the different ways of which blogs are used.
The main category’s I looked at where personal blogs and corporate blogs.

Typically when I think of blogs I think of some one sat at home typing into a pre set template such as Blogger or Word Press, creating almost an online diary. But through looking into different blogs you soon get a true in sight of what people use them for.
They range from online tutorials, show casing work, sharing tips, ideas, views and opinions, rating movies and music and having online discussions.

Two great examples of these are Lauren Luke who created video pod casts and posted them online of her passion/hobby for make up and colour, she showed examples and tips through her pod casts so that others could follow. She now has 3 million hits and has been offered her own makeup range.
The other great example is of a Gary Vaynerchuk who has a passion for wine and so did pod casts and entry’s about different wines, he now has celebrities featuring in his blog.

In corporate use they are used so that customers can have more a personal insight not given by their professional websites, these blogs tend to look completely different to the commercial sites where they sell products or services.
They tend to have links to groups such as twitter and social networks which you may not associate big company’s with. And can be really in formal which you may not find through their big website, such as a recent blog post I read reading: ‘sometimes we suck’ which was an apology to customers after the company’s server went down for the day. Famously they will tweet or tell us about new products coming out or updates but they have to be careful about what they are posting, recently a manager of a large company sent out a message how he was ‘dreading today, because I have to fire one of my employees’ which obviously all the employees saw online and felt on edge at work. The media got a hold of this and created a huge story about how it was unfair to post such a comment. So they have to be a little reserved when posting comments.

I use blogs as part of my course work for college as a way of featuring my work, I have mainly used blogging for a group production called ‘The Square’ where I evaluated my work and added diary entries as I went along, this helped a great deal when creating the finishing evaluation for this work and was also an additional piece of work to add in with my coursework.
I have also used a blog to act as an information guide to people using the social network JustLikeHeaven which I made for one of my younger siblings and her friends, who where wanting to use face book and Bebo but their parents weren’t allowing them to.

Interactivity

2009-11-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

______________________________________________________ 28/11/09
Interactivity & the red button

My current course is mainly design based and focuses on photography, print based and computerised graphics, web design and development, blogs, 2d and 3d animation, screen design, social networking mobile applications, new products to the creative industries, podcasts, online broadcasting, gaming, video including filming, storyboarding, directing, production music & sound, visual effects, editing, and scripting plus developing all of these subjects for interactive mobile, web and DVD applications and other emerging formats.
Since joining the course I have decided that I would like to progress into a career in the television industry with my design background I will probably look towards a career which combines both graphics and TV production – maybe interactivity or adding graphics post production, but I am enthusiastic to learn all areas available to me.
Because of this I have started looking into interactivity i.e. the red button on sky, however other formats of this are the websites, competitions, and voting applications.

To use the interactivity features through your tv, simply press the red button on your remote control at any time. Sometimes you will be prompted to press the button by an announcement in a programme or a red button logo appearing in the top right-hand corner of the TV screen.
· News the latest local, national and international news, and a menu of multiple screens for video updates, all available 24 hours a day
· Sport up-to-the-minute sports news and results, plus a choice of coverage with extra live matches and alternative commentary
· Information weather forecasts, travel reports and business news
· Join in with programs have your say
· CBeebies games and stories for very young children
Another use is when tv channels advertise upcoming tv programs

Interactive TV is available with any digital service, though the type and number of features vary according to whether you have digital terrestrial, satellite, cable or broadband.
Most of the interactive features currently available are provided by the BBC, Sky and the cable companies. A few other broadcasters, including ITV, offer a limited range.
Examples of content:-

Boomerang – kids TV –
When the red button is pressed it shows platform games the majority which you have to pay for however some are free.

ITV interactive

– ITV1 – a banner pops up at the bottom of the screen so that you can still view the television program you where watching as well as hearing the sound.
On the banner you can click on multiple options for different ITV TV programs.
Such as X factor and Im a celebrity.

Under the X factor you have the options to enter the competition, see the latest news highlights and information about the show.
The interface is quite plain in comparison to the Im a Celebrity get me out of here page which uses graphics matching the show.

Again on this channel you are given the option to enter a competition as well as the feature to view a profile of each contestant, a comments page which features comments off ITV.com/celebrity as well as a feature called Jungle Juicer which plays small video feeds. There is also a game uploaded onto this page called Jungle Dash which is a Sky Game external to the service meaning you have to pay for it.

The Coronation street area has a surprisingly modern look through its use of graphics its more what you might expect from the X factor than Coronation street, on this page there are links to “Catch up”, to view “news & Gossip” and “previews”
When you press Catch Up it shows the video highlights over the last week with the date written in a banner across the video clip.
Under News and Gossip there are a few story lines which you can click on for more information with little hints to what may or may not happen yet.

With the early morning talk show This Morning you can enter competitions, view snippets from over the last week and look at the recipes featured on the show, the interface reflects graphics from the show and keeping the theme from the TV show itself.

The ITV interactive bar also includes direct links to some of the games featured on Sky Games such as Who wants to be a Millionaire and Family fortunes.

And of course you can access TeleText

Between each new page loading there are adverts for other ITV shows such as This Morning.
Each page has links to their sponsors via the yellow button, which means that their sponsors also get a page on ITV interactivity. On the Harvey’s furniture store for instance you can view their latest offers and products. You can sign up to their ‘vip’ newsletter for the latest sales and news.

The BBC News channel allows you to view the headline which most interests you meaning you don’t have to wait for the story you want to crop up in the news schedule as you can go straight to it.

Images taken myself during broadcast.

________________________________________________________ 15/12/09 14:39
Further research into interactivity

SKY interactive:

Sky Active
QVC Shopping
PlayJam Games
Teletext Holidays
Sky Customer services
Sky Gamestar
PlayMonteCarlo & Roulette
Directgov - Government Information
Sky Vegas
NHS Interactive
Skykeys /Internet Sites

There are plenty of offers available through Sky Interactive services. Look for the RED button while watching TV, this indicates that interactive services are available, allowing you to get more involved in the programme being broadcast. Many services require a connection to a U.K. landline.

Sky Welcome
On Sky Welcome you can see demonstration of how to use the basic Sky Digital receivers and a demonstration of the Sky+ receivers. Check out the Sky Welcome channel 998. It’s a great way to get to know Sky and discover how to make the most of your Sky features and services. There are no interactive or text features on this channel.
Channel Four no longer broadcasts red button services, Five has a very limited service available.

Teletext

With Teletext Holidays TV on Sky channel 665, you can now see the resorts and destinations before you book. The channel features all of the deals available through the analogue service and website.
You'll find bargains from a selection of the UK's most popular holiday brands including First Choice, Thomsons, Cheapestflights.com, Hays Travel and Freedom Direct.
If you're interested in a holiday different from the one being broadcast on the channel or want to check some destination guides or holiday ideas, you can search through thousands more package holidays, flights, UK breaks and cruise bargains using the free digital text service by simply pressing the TEXT button on your Sky remote.
The digital text holiday pages can also be accessed by pressing INTERACTIVE on a Sky digital remote control and selecting Teletext Holidays.
Some services require that you are connected to a UK landline.

Sky Gamestar

Challenge, test and tease yourself here with the best games for all the family by pressing Yellow from the Sky Active front page and selecting Puzzles & Games.
Choose from a great selection of games, from word games such as Word Crunch, quiz games like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, kids' games such as Looney Tunes and old classics like Monopoly, Scrabble and Tetris!
Or you could even pit your wits against Trivial Pursuit Cash Quiz and see if you can win instant cash by answering questions on categories including Art and Literature, Science and Nature and Sports and Leisure.

Entertainment
Within Entertainment, you can also check out the film showing times for your local cinema, and book tickets at ODEON cinemas - all through your TV. There's also a brilliant What's On Guide with information on local events including music to suit all tastes, local attractions, comedy & club nights, festivals, ideas for family days out and more. You can even book to see shows, theatre performances and gigs with Lastminute.com and Keith Prowse Tickets using your remote control.
Sports & Betting Whether you're one for the horses, a footy fanatic or just fancy a wager on the latest reality TV show, visit the Sports & Betting area. Here, you can place bets with one of our bookmaker partners on a whole range of sports and more, plus pick up our tipster's selections for upcoming events. (You must be over 18 to place a bet).

http://www.astra2d.com/interactive.htm - all info above - 15/12/09 - 14:39pm

________________________________________________________ 15/12/09 14:45
Other ways of interacting - away from the TV itself...

The internet
- All big networks i.e. Five, BBC, Channel4, ITV have websites which have an indervidual page for each of their television programs.
- with these you can interact directly with each program by clicking on its indervidual page, you can enter competitions watch past episodes, add your feedback and more.

Mobile phone apps
- Sky has many I-phone apps in particular,

Such as the iPhone app: Sky+ Iphone which is avaliable to download from the app store now. It basically gives you sky plus on your Iphone. Find out more here: SkyIphone App which gives working screen shotts as examples of the app in action!
To get the app working you must create an account which links to your sky box.
The draw back of it is that obviously you do need to have Sky at home, and that you have to request to view the program 30 mins before it actually starts... this is so that a request can be sent to your Sky box and back to your Iphone.

Phone in -
phoning in is quite dated now, with all of the new technologys which have been invented there seems no point for it unless you really need to speak to a person i.e. for help or to make a compliant.

________________________________________________________ 15/12/09 14:51
the ways of interacting before satellite boxes, mobile phones and the internet

the main reasons for 'interacting' were to enter competitions on programs such as Blue Peter
-to interact you had to send in a postcard/letter with your details and the competition answer.
Now you can simply send an email or enter online.

_______________________________________________________ 14/01/09 13.21
I have been looking at the types of television programs available for viewing combined with the sorts of content they have included with them.

Sport:
Most sports channels such as sky sports only show recent updates that has happened overall in the sports world whereas individual sports channels such as LFCTV, Chelsea TV ect.... don’t have the red button function, So I could create a working interface for this, including individual match highlights i.e. LFCTV could view Liverpool match highlights, and have mini games with their coloured shirts as characters. The red button content could also include player Bios including their age, height and what year they joined the team.
With this I could also create a sponsor’s advert i.e. Carling or Umbro could have an advert on the selected page.

Cartoons:
Cartoons such as Nicktoons, have a small amount of interactive content such as games with characters from popular cartoons such as sponge bob square pants. This could even feature a few cartoon episodes like on SKY anytime where selected shows can be played when you want, so that you don’t have to wait for the TV schedule to catch up with you.

News Programs:
News programs show the latest news updates as it happens, a great example of this is the BBC.

Reality TV:
Reality TV programs such as X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent host competitions, a vote through the TV, profiles of each contestant and the ability to view recent clips,

Soap Operas
Soap operas show recent clips and highlights from their shows, as well as trailers for upcoming story lines.

____________________________________________________________________

Movie FX

2009-11-28T10:29:00.000-08:00

This week I have been looking at old fashioned movie clips and the special effects that they used. The main effect used was having a person turn into another, this would have been done by matching together small clips of footage. As a group we have tried replicating this on a stair case however it hasnot worked greatly due to size differances.

2d Barcoding

2009-11-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

2d barcoding is a new format been used by mobile phones to connect them to websites whilst on the go! So its a great advertising technique theyre now oftern found on the sides of coke cans and several hair products, they work through your camera phone if you have an i-phone or “smart phone” with the 2d barcoding software. I created a few for websites which I created such as one for my very own online portfolio: http://www.heather-louise.com/
however they can be very tempermental

They get the name 2d barcoding as they can be printed on anything even
t-shirts and paper
see them in action at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihdn8XDWebE
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Capsool

2009-11-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

I was one of the beta testers for capsool.

Capsool is an aspiring new soical network where you can make virtual time caspules.

They had a good idea but what they where aspiring for and the scale of what they where hoping was slightly unrealistic becasue they where wanting to charge people to buy these virtual capsules which had no guarentee of reaching the particular person they went to and if you sent it 50 years into the future theres no guarentee that the company would still be around.

Over all if this was to become a fully working interface I think that I would most likely use capsool to send a message into the future to my child to receive on their 18th birthday that way I could write in their card so that they would know to find it, I think it would be a nice gesture and it could also hold a photo of her when she was little which would make her laugh as she would look back (like the pictures you find of little kids licking out huge bowls after helping their parents bake but end up covered in cake mix and chocolate!)

I think capsool will be great for small children playing pirates or explorers as they could hide a secret message or photo/video as their buried treasures and they wouldn’t be able to open the treasure again until next week when their friends are back around to play!

It would also be great for children around Christmas, parents could leave a capsool message from Father Christmas and on Christmas day the kids would be able to open a message from Santa! This would make their day!

In the business world capsool could be used to create spark around a company opening!

Several capsools be set up. This would be followed by a series of adverts through the web and real world, messages on these adverts such as its coming and 1week to go will create almost viral marketing as people will wonder whats coming? And what’s all this about? They will then be sent to the capsool website to open the capsool which will give for example the shop name, followed by a separate capsool for opening hours, location and a website. The sorts of advertising to run along side this will come in the form of internet pop-ups, online banners, screen adverts through websites, in print through the form of posters and flyers, even billboards by the sides of roads.

This will not only give the new company advertising but it will give capsool advertising as well.

But as it stands im not parting with my money just yet!