Presentation Aural Terrains

As a group we were happy with our outcome. We though we nailed our performance, through the sound performance. The actual performance actually did not go how we wanted it. But when you think about our beat, we didn't have to nail a beat. Because we already had the audience listening carefully to the sounds that went through to them. We wanted them to understand that everyday objects didn't have be perfect in order to satisfy how they think but it made them understand that the every sound meant something when played/ when performed, which we think we achieved in the end

Food Sound

The concept of using food to produce a beat or bright sound was thought to be a good idea, as to not only can food produce music, but it can also change how a person feels. Because in music people can see and hear, the extra factor that food has is that it can smell as well. This is why we though that not only can food sound soothe the mind but it can also change how a person feels for example feeling hungry.

By using sound from the mcdonalds food.

-paper

-wrapper

-burger

-sundae cup

-spoon

small objects from food belongings can help make a simple sound and produce a piece of music that can change the thoughts of many. By timing the connection of different vibrant sounds a wrapper can connect with a spoon hitting paper can either change the mind of how they are looking at the food or how they can hear the sound playing. So it can be as confusing but also clear.

Making sound from everyday noise

we see this idea as an idea that can be developed into making something out of nothing. I thought that the everyday sound has its meaning. Why do we hear construction sites, why do we want to listen to the chain saw, why is it that its annoying to our minds. Noises like these can really be a nuisance, but if put in correct use we can achieve a more vibrant sound. The noise can be used to help heal the mind, change our thinking. So we wanted as a group to use everyday objects or our environment to change how we feel about about sound

Aural Terrains concepts

our groups ideas

-sound tonal maker

-theme sound

-radio mixers

Sound Beat Maker

• The idea of making sound by standing on a base which will repeated replay a tone which would make a beat. We thought that the idea was too simple and that it may have been taken. The outcome we thought looked similar to a piano on the ground. The idea was that when you step on the base. The base would create a sound, just like as if you were on a piano with your fingers pressing them to create a sound or beat.

  a relation to our idea is a video clip of this music band

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IbjjszxkQg

Theme Image sound

• This idea we thought would be ideal for a aural terrains theme. I liked how the idea was different as the concept was shown through an image. As the image played we wanted to show create a floor which had the base, you could stand on the floor and depending on the image. The base would make a sound creating a environmental sound, for example if the them was a forest image. The idea could be that when you step on the floor. Sounds from the jungle could be played to create a picture of what the forest can mean.

  an exmaple of what we tried to use

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg3W11G4In0

Producing a beat through everyday sound

- This idea we thought about it very hard as to how we can make everyday life a part of our everyday sound. We all know that when things clang and bang together we tend to focus and listen only to the sounds our ears and our minds want us to listen too. We wanted to use this as a focus of trying to mix sounds for example tin cans, paper, toys and then trying to create a beat or a sound that the people can listen too and find that each sound has a meaning to what we produce.

an example of this is through the video that inspired us to create everyday sound out of anything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XCQc5p-oow

Tessellation Music development

sound on Breadboard

http://soundcloud.com/mcmanuatu/tracks#2%2FnTswoqP9UZFBtgfqtkDDzv42c-nadytZRkd7tM8CbFs

Sound on Breadboard

http://soundcloud.com/mcmanuatu/sound-the-champ

Connection Failed to make sound

When i tried to connect the wires to the circuit. I thought that the soldering may have been too close to each other. I burnt the board and it may have cost the result of the sound not working.

The Champ

i managed to produced some sound when making "The Champ." When i move the speaker around slightly i could hear the progressively change into different tones and noises.

What attracts you?

Link to City Recontruction Building sound

http://aporee.org/maps/index.php

Building Construction

Sound Construction

Anechoic chamber

The Anechoic chamber was a whole new experience for me. To enter a room which had surrounding by a concrete wall and a lot of foam, the room was able to block out the loud noise and echoes which was amazing. The way noise can be just turned off effectively like that made people in the room think about the future of sound and music. This was a great opportunity to think about what we can do to change sound and music. The anechoic chamber was a great example of showing different ways sound be be changed dramatically and easily.

Sound Walk

So our sound walk allowed us to focus mainly on the sounds around us. My main focus on the walk was to think deeper into the city sounds surrounding us..i wanted to listen to the many combinations of sounds and the effects each small sound effected our overall sounds which we can hear. The combinations of different sounds become a composition which flows into our ear. I noticed that we can not hear every single sound but we hear a mix of sounds. I thought this made us think about how we can listen and learn something. So for me my mind could not capture all the sounds in my head but it was as if my mind and focus was only into the sounds we want to hear.

Experimental Film : POINT GUARD

The film is about a hostage crisis in Kazakhstan. The short action film was full of violence and thrill to it. I thought that the structure of the film was very good in some ways, but the film has no particular conclusion to the short film. The film showed some grest ways of applying good camera use to the way the terrorists acted upon the film. Also the style of music and sound effects used to make the film so thrilling worked very well. The sound which was used to build up the action thriller later stages really makes the viewer capture that serious look when they see what happens. Then the use of the slow moving sound effects really made the film show a sad ending. Overall though i thought this film showed a good way of using the camera and directing it to make it look as if the terrorists were in full control.

Experimental Film international Film Festival RIZE

The international film festival film Rize (2005) is a documentary about dance and how people experiment themselves by expressing a a modern day art which is 'Krump'. The movie talks about how crews and gangs finding themselves wanting to find ways of making the world change and by using the danceform of Krump, it allows them to release energy and let themselves go. The art form of krump or krumping in the film teaches the viewer what is happening in the american community, the ghetto and those places which don't have very much but express and experiment hoping one day they can make it out of the streets.

Changes to our Rubix Cube

We had to think of another way to make our rubix cube more effective after the magnets weren't holding together at a good full force attraction. The Steel we used didn't match how we planned it to be. After a bit of research on magnets and how they cant connect to steel then through to the other magnet. We then came up with a solution that if wood was made in the certain areas of the rubix cube were the magnets are placed, than the magnets should fully hold each other in a strong position. We made different sizes to rubix cube because the rubix cube would be better and more effective for the person the interact with the game.

Rubix cube problem encounter

Today we learnt that accuracy and effectiveness of using the tools were crucial. Because of my welding, the rubix cube didnt quite come off on how i wanted it too. The end result of the welding was a bit of hassle because of the amount of time we had, the welding had to right on song, but what i thought was going to be perfectly sealed. When we stuck the rubix cube together, they didnt quite match eachother. This showed with the rubix cube being a bit off with measurements which meant the welding had to fixed properly and it took alot of time off our planned date.

Rubix Cube made of Steel

So we researched the type of steel we wanted to use for the rubix cube. our intentions were to make it out the lightest steel as possible. Because aluminum was the most soft and lightweight steel possible. We gathered the information and looked at the different types of stores for the most efficient aluminum steel there was. The prices of the steel were abit much to our budget and we so we changed our idea of aluminum and brought steel that was cheaper. But we knew the consequences of the steel we brought was abit heavier the the intended material. But we learnt from today that the prices of the material may be light but also it can be expensive.

Making Product

So far we have come close in finishing making the product. A few issues with the magnets used in the product. Firstly, because the magnets are not as strong as we thought it would be. Secondly, the size of the magnets we got may have been a bit too big for rubix cube, though we did manage to figure out a way to squeeze in the magnets into preferably a more suited area by cutting out circles in the steel.
Our goal is now to make the cube as strong as possible, because we want our cameras to fit in perfectly so we don't hesitate on how the cameras will pull though hoping it will stay on.

Overall I thought that our presentation went well. My group members explained our idea thoroughly enough and showed great interpretation into how our concept came about from a previous idea.

We now need to work off our concept and finish off the final touches. The problem is that the magnets connected through the steel blocks I welded on are too loose. Somehow our magnets are not attracting each other, which has made us come to the point of buying new magnets in order for blocks to connect, which should allow our steel made rubix cube to strongly hold onto each other without hesitating on strenght and endurance of the magnets.

With the 100 x 100 mm size camera, expect to see our rubix cube at a pretty big rubix cube. This will allow the person interacting with our rubix cube to spin and from there the camera will do the rest, capturing images from the surroundings and from the hidden areas of auckland city. Our intentions are that the images captured from the camera will have some hands blocking the camera at times. This because when we think about whos playing around with the rubix cube, that only we see the surroundings behind the rubix cube, but also in a way we can compare our thoughts to the person and what they could be doing there (for example: is this where they regularly shop). We get a chance to not see the hidden places of auckland city, but we can also think about how people interact with the city.

Making the Model at 3d Lab

We came into the 3d lab with a strong plan.

-make the rubix cube out of steel

-weld the steel together to make cube blocks

-make a camera holder

-stick the magnets

We started by putting the steel sheets together and making sure that we knew how many holes were needed in each cube for the magnet to hold. We needed 18, 10 x 10 sheets of steel drilled with holes. The purpose for these holes are for the magnets to contract eachother when the blocks are stuck together. Our intentions is for the magnet to hold onto the steel and when connected, the magnets will hold everything together for the twist effect.

Welding was also a big challenge for me. With no previous experience and with limited amount of help. Time wasn't going to let us have practise time. I started off strugling on some practise sheets. But when the pressure was on, i gradually connected with the welding gun and i got to learn something out of this 3d lab which was good for future projects.

Main Cinematic Fleneur Idea Development Stage

Our challenge is a rubix cube. Our original concept was a rubix cube, the tradrational 3 by 3 rubix cube. We then decided to break apart the rubix cube and somehow noticed that the inside structure of the rubix cube was quite simple and had quite good features for a spinning top. But it seemed we had gone off track abit. So we changed our idea into a more simple 2 by 2 rubix cube. Reasons being with the amount of time that our development and the limit number of days the rubix cube has to be set and built by. The 3 by 3 rubix cube idea would take forever just making parts of a rubix cube, thats not including installing the 2 cameras. Our intentions now is to now figure out a way to figure out sizes for how everything is going to be put together.

Cinematic Fleneur Possible Idea

Today we started to think of getting our final concept ready for development. We came up with the idea of making a rubix cube style invention. The experiment with the rubix cube came from a previous project from one of our members. We focused on how we could explore the city with a rubix cube. By showing the city in an experimental way, we thought of having the 2 cameras attached to the sides of the rubix cube. Because the rubix is able to twist and turn, our thoughts were the rubix cube would be able to show the city in different ways. Almost like the cameras are 2 eyes, it can see the front, back and from other angles. This could be a way the experiment could be able to see how the city in different ways.

My Presentation day

I chose to present my wearable garment for the presentation. This reasoning because i wanted to show my thinking towards the idea of my garment to the lectures. I thought they didn't quite get the point into my garment through the apron. The idea was to show how i developed my idea as a concept which started as an apron which ended up to wearable garment which is pressed to watch well known cities in New Zealand. This was the idea i tried to show the lectures.

Final product for film

It was our last day to bring out everything we had done throughout the week. Everything began to glue into place. Everyone in the group was busy. We felt the pressure.
My job was to design the final menu and make a movie cover. I knew that the title menu for the movie had to look strong and effective, chad did the sound. I helped him make the sound correct and effective. Some of the sounds didn't match up with structure of the scene, but we managed to fix them in time. With the menu for the play button, i wanted to show through the title that i could show through a meaning. With the image of Dorothy in the middle. I wanted to show in the dense image with the opacity of the image of Tinman and the Witch, because it shows the images like the dream effect. Overall i thought that the plan we came up with did come through, the only change i thought we could have made better was the voice overs of the film.

Shooting the film day

We came up with the idea of having to show Tinman as a human. Chad was acting as Tinman and we as a group were thinking of showing sci fi by having tinman as a human, but with sound effects of metal steel like Iron Man etc. This was a chance for us in the shooting to change things around and make our characters different. With the witch in the movie acting as a woman, i figured we could make the witch look like a Darth Vader from star wars. This would make our genre of Science Fiction show a bit more effectively. We had to add a prop of red shoes which was used in the film. For this we wanted to show that the red shoes could be a major factor in finding out how Dorothy meets up with Tinman.
Our filming shoot took a while, as we had some trouble in remembering our scripts that Rebecca made. We learnt that it wasn't easy acting and remembering lines.
Dan as director did direct us well ad we got to bond with each other which helped make our film look as effective and as real as we wanted it to.

Ideas for Storyboard

With our ideas as a group slowly jotted down on journals. We decided to go with a storyline that Rebecca made. The story was about Dorothy having a fantasy dream, then all of a sudden she has images of other people talking to her and telling her about someone she has to watch out for. This was an idea we thought we could build off and describe in our movie. We also thought this was storyline we that had a sci fi style. We were confident that this was going to work out.

Reverse Cinema

We started the day with group discussions. We came up with ideas from each member trying to figure out a plan for the movie. The plan for the day was to come up with a story line which we could begin and structure throughout the week. I was assigned to be the story board designer. i was also assigned to an actor for the film. It was yet to be decided though.

Presentation Serious Fun (reflective statement)

Today i thought our presentation went as planned, the class seemed to get our idea and we enjoyed doing the project. From the project i learnt that communication plays a big part in progressing to the next stage of developing a concept. It started from day one. Our group of 4, Me, Chad, Ron, Amir as we tried to figure out how we were going to work through what we thought was going to be a big task. Though at times we had trouble planning things and getting them to work on time, we learnt to co operate well and get through our concept to develop it and work it. For me i learnt from this project to become a bit more involved and get my ideas working with my group which i hadnt really done through the other projects. I also got to show a bit of my artistic side which the group thought i had done really well. I was happy my group thought i was accurate with my shapes in putting them togther to produce a drawing. As an analyst for my group, i thought my group went pretty well working at their best as they each had special areas. Amir was the processing machine. I thought when he started working with Unity, that he would figure it out overnight. That wasn't the case as he went back to his preferred proccessing programming. He did well overall and got the job right when we wanted it. Ron did the animation side of things, trying to figure out how our characters were going to run on adobe flash. Chad played a big part in our group as he tried to help us all out while doing his own part in the project. Overall i thought this project made us work harder and achive individual high results.

Referencing for Seriuos Fun

Image Referencing:

1. John Cena's World "Spinner" Championship Belt [Online Image]. Retrieved May 17, 2010, from wiawrestling.

http://100megsfree4.com/wiawrestling/pages/wwf/cenawwebelt.html

2.Kosher fish [Online Image]. Retrieved May 17, 2010, from Failed Messiah. The Next Haredi Ban? Pork Of The Sea.

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/rabbi_slifkin_book_ban/index.html

3.Boxing Gloves [Online Image]. Retrieved May 17 2010, from Cevette, Senator McCain's Tough Week.

http://cevette.org/cevetteblog/

4. Sun Wearing Glasses [Online Image]. Retrieved May 17, 2010, from Charlotte Law Library News.

http://charlottelawlibrary.wordpress.com/2009/05/06/library-summer-hours/

5.Corals Online Image], Retrieved May 18, 2010, from Animation Treasures, Corals.

http://one1more2time3.wordpress.com/2008/09/

Last Touches Serious Fun!

So we touched up on our final ideas, each group member contributed throughtout the night and figured out that how we were going to put everything together.
The only problem now was our Eyetoy used for our mouse pad wasnt quite working properly, and that it was a frustrating stage because the presentation is due tomorow.
We knew that today was going to be a long day and that if we couldnt get the interaction we worked hard to work, it was going to be a long day. We noticed that the eyetoy read a previous takes and the problem was solved, though i think i was the only one who didnt quite figure it out.

Development Showed in Serious Fun assignment

We came together as a group and talked about our final jobs with the presentation just around the corner.
-Ron -producing Animation
-Me -drawing the Animation
-Amir -figuring our as many ways of interaction
-Chad -figuring the sound and max patches and also coming up with plan Bs

So i read the stories of Eclipse and Octi(the 2 characters) and had to think about how to draw the story onto my journal. It didnt take long before i came up with drawings of Eclipse that represented his side of the story. Ron came up with the Octi story and we showed in the story that they meet up. We showed by the end that before the interaction would come in, Octi and Eclipse were going meet up in one place.

So we finshed our side of the project and it came down to procesing programming and how we were going show interaction. We had ideas of using Unity but with the time we had it was going to be a long time before any of us learnt Unity, though the program looked nice to use. So we thought that using processing would still be simple and effective.

Animation Ideas

Our ideas were to come up with imaginative ways of showing the animation side of the project.

-Show our animation through Adobe Flash which Ron sounded confident in using
-Show animation through Unity
-Show animation through Processing with Amir confident in using the program
-Showing animation through a comic style

So we to think about how we would show animation in a way no other group would show through unity and what not. So our group had the night to sleep on it and come up with why they decide what animation they chose for the group.
It didnt take long for the group to decide that Comic Book animation would be ideal to use.
-its simple to produce
-it show the story of the charcters
-you dont need to add in fancy stuff

We also came up with the idea of using a Big Box for a Mouse Pad. This idea was ideal as the group saw some youtube videos with mouse pad, and figured out we could use a Big Mouse Pad for the interaction stage.
We slowly learnt that each that each day we learn something new which made our day.

After meeting with James Charlton Serious fun Serious changes!!

We met with James to disguss our working progress and it seemed to James that our idea sounded and by the look of our drawing and what we wanted to achieve was a bit too complicated and too much work for the amount of time we had. So we took in what James told us which was to keep our concept 'SIMPLE' and still get it to be 'Effective'.

So with our idea of having a 3d world of a hall way. Pictures on the side of each character and its background story. It looked like it was going to be a challenge too much for us to take on.
So we as a group(Me, Ron, Amir, Chad) almost went back to square one, until we came up with a idea to let go of 2 characters so that we could make it easier on us and our development.

Our group decided that Hammer and Mummy had to leave through development and that Eclipse and Octi would be easier to show in our interaction and animation.

First Stage of our Serious Fun Assignment

We started off with 4 characters. Asked ourselves "How the hell are we going to use these characters in an animation with interaction. We had no idea what to do until we got something to eat.

So we came back into the class, with each of us coming up with our background stories and ideas started to roll through the journals. We thought that the best idea would be using 'Unity' as a program which would have everything in it animation, interaction and still show a story. We went through ideas on how we could produce the setting and background to show and idea of the 4 characters.

So you would have thought that everything would have been running smoothly, until we figured out that none of us knew anything about Unity. So we went through stage 1 for a couple of days.

Claymation Exercise

The Theme, The Product, The Finishing touches

Well, the final product is a garment with a map of New Zealand printed onto it. The Theme though is that the provinces will be represented with a theme. The theme is rugby!. I thought rugby was a theme that all provinces can relate too, and that because rugby is culture that New Zealand knows well and represents well to us as ONE. With the 4 keys i used to hack in to the computer screen. I decided to use the buttons for 4 New Zealand super 14 teams, 2 from the North Island (AUCKLAND=BLUES and Hamilton=Chiefs) and from the South Island (Canterbury=Crusaders and Otago=Highlanders). So by clicking on the buttons on the garment, it will then hack in 4 different videos. So each video will represent each proud chosen provinces.
The garment is a apron with wires used to connect to the garment and usb keyboard circuit used to hack into the screen.

I really like this right now.one word "sooolidd" haha

Shorty is a meenie meenie miney moe lover!!!

Connecting the Wires. SOLDERING ALL DAY LONG!!

Well Soldering the wires to the keyboard circuit has been a struggle. So far out of the 4 keys i want to put together, ive only got 1 connect together and only hanging together. But so far the concept is slowly developing into a picture that will soon be a button away from showing what it can do on the screen. Though im not to give away the secret of what the the screen will produce onto the screen. I will let you know now that everything is going pretty well and on target.
But today i just want the soldering stuff out of the way. I don't have any copper or fancy things connecting to my garment, because i feel that my garment is simple though effective and attractive to the eye.

Whats a Garment No One Would come up with?

Well, after some pretty long analysing on the garments around our communities and the ideas floating about the class with gloves touching and wristband ligthing. I wanted something different and show, a garment that i thought no one would think of. I saw the hats and caps, the t'shirts and shirts. But it was when i crossed the 2 dollar shop with Chad Maihi. There it was, the idea, and a picture that i felt no one would have come up with. A picture of New Zealand on a Blur Apron. I knew this was going to be what i could do for my wearable interface.So its pretty funny how you can just prance around manukau westfield and walk into your chosen concept like that.

Wearing The Interface (Brainstorm)

Well i started my project off touring around westfields and flee markets around west auckland, south auckland and avondale. I noticed that the pictures on hats and beanies, shirts and jackets, drink bottles and cars. The images of guitars, pianos printed on t'shirts made me wonder: "What if these images produced on these shirts could play to us?." So i wrote them down and used them as concepts to my idea. I started to wonder and analyse "What if the piano keys printed on the shirts could play the actual notes?, What if we could just press the keys on the guitar on the shirt produced a sound?" Though we need speakers on the clothing. But is there another way we can use it to do what the mind thinks it can???."

The Wearable Interface Assignment

Well the task is to create a wearable garment that controls screen output from Max/MSP Jitter.
So far im still at the stage of brainstorming. I still have to time to come up with some ideas but it i know i got to do it fast. Theres alot to be done in 2 weeks..haha Ill be back!

Animata Keyboard Controls

I found this activity very challenging, but it was good. It started with soldering the wires to the animata. It took a pretty long period of time to figure out how to solder properly and at times i figured what the hell, should i give up or should i carry on. Though it took a while and a couple of nights i finally figured out a way to hold it together. Another trouble was programming, I had pretty much no idea how to programe the animata to keyboard. Though with a bit of help, we got thier in the end.

Reflection on Project Machine

Our project was to create an interactive machine that could respond to input data such as sound light, distance, touch. The group struggled in the programming area which didn't help much, but we knew we had to work our way through this. Designing the machine was also a hassle at times as we kept changing things around. This was a good thing as we had quite a bit of development to work on. I thought we had worked quite well to get to through this project. Our theme for the project was the city streets and the images we programmed our machine to do produced the images quite well. Overall i thought we worked well together but found the project challenging at the same time.