Category Archives: Activities

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Solo Editing – Visual Story Assignment

Activities, Projects, Video, , , , ,

As part of our Visual Story course at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center we were given a solo editing assignment which required us create a video given professionally shot editing software. The following is my video. The music used is Denial Revisited by The Offspring.

https://youtu.be/TH1E1eiJWGo

Task

Our task entailed selecting footage from a number of videos, namely:

  • TN Parkour: First experience with editing & storytelling.
  • Stranger at the Door: Easy but more storytelling elements.
  • Anesthesia: More story(scary) with effects.
  • Unleashed: More challenging with Green Screen, VFX.

I chose to edit TN Parkour. With this video I attempted to create a music video of with cuts at beats, and attempted to tell a story of friends meeting up to do Parkour and ultimately feeling some sense of accomplishment at the end.

Improvisational Acting – Improvised Portraits

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During our first session of Improvisational Acting at Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center one of our tasks was to work together with a partner. The task was to create improvised portraits, and name them.

The rules to create these portraits was simple. Each person was given a different colored pen, and was allowed to make single strokes one after another. Any hesitation resulted in having to stop drawing, and choose a name. The name was created by taking turns writing a single letter.

The following is what Charlie and I created.

Improvised Portraits

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We very much enjoyed making these memorable characters! Try out this exercise yourself sometime, its loads of fun!

Visual Story – Space

Activities, Photography, , , , ,

After completing our first assignment our next involved exploring a different aspect of Visual Story. Space.

Space in visual story can be broken down into four categories:

  • Ambiguous
  • Flat
  • Limited
  • Deep

Ambiguous Space

Ambiguous space creates a feeling of confusion in the viewer. It can be created with the following elements:

  • Lack of movement.
  • Unfamiliar shapes.
  • Confusing tonal and textural patterns (camouflage)
  • Mirrors and reflections.
  • Objects of unknown size
  • Disorienting camera angles.

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Continue reading Visual Story – Space →

Marshmallow Challenge

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As part of Building Virtual Worlds we were tasked to complete the marshmallow challenge.

The marshmallow challenge has teams build a tower out of a number of materials:

  • 20 sticks of spaghetti.
  • One yard of tape.
  • One yard of string.
  • One marshmallow.

We completed the challenge with a height of 29 inches, and though our tower may not have been the tallest when measured. At the end of the day it certainly was the tallest left standing.

marshmallow-challenge

Visual Story – Composition

Activities, Photography, Projects, , , , , ,

In our Visual Story course we were tasked to take pictures demonstrating various visual concepts. Our first assignment involved composition, namely working with the following concepts in photography:

  • Balance
  • Filling the Frame
  • Frame Withing a Frame.
  • Lines.
  • Patterns.
  • Rule of Thirds.
  • Shapes.

Below are the pictures I took for each category with a little why for each.

Some of the following photos did not successfully capture the category, but I included them anyways because I enjoyed taking them.

Balance

Balance is a tricky concept well explained at photographylife.com. Essentially when I took my photos I focused on creating photos with two points of focus and symmetry.

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Continue reading Visual Story – Composition →

White Water Rafting – Pittsburgh

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Have you ever gone white water rafting? With a lottery, a little yellow ticket, and the efforts of Carnegie Mellon Universities Graduate Student Assembly, I have.

white_water_rafting_gsa

So on a dreary Sunday morning we set off for the main university campus, got on a bus, and traveled to the lower Youghiogheny River.

white_water_rafting_leaving

When we finally arrived, we were dropped off at the outdoor office of our guides, The Laurel Highlands River Tours (imagine the following picture but grey and rainy).

white_water_rafting_laurel

On confirming our reservation we promptly collected our gear, ran through various vitally important safety measures, then began rafting. The experience required working together with ones raft cohabitants, and though we ‘frequently’ faced trials and tribulations, we always pulled through in the end.

white_water_rafting_boat

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Painting IndoPak Independence in Pittsburgh

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The 14/15th of August is Pakistan and India’s Independence day. As part of the celebration a bunch of Carnegie Mellon (CMU) students planned to paint CMU’s famous fence in both nations colors. Some friends and I tagged along to help out, and be a part of the old CMU tradition.

Independence_night_photo

The end result was something to be proud of.

Independence_painted_fence

To The Entertainment Technology Center

Activities, , , , ,

Over the past several months I’ve been busy applying to Masters programs in The United States of America. Pondering ones fate whilst waiting is at times nerve wracking, but the wait has been worth it. I am happy to say that awhile back I was admitted to The Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon!

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After some serious consideration I believe that a practical focus on game design is exactly what I need. Therefore I intend to attend Carnegie Mellon for a two year Masters program come Fall 2016!

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So fingers crossed! By August I hope to be doing a Masters in Entertainment Technology at The Entertainment Technology Center in Pittsburgh!

Elfen Lied – A Study of Episode 1

Activities, Projects, Video, Video Impressions, WIT, , , , ,

This short piece details a brief study on the emotional makeup of the anime Elfen Lied’s first episode. To aid this endeavor I will be employing some lite statistical techniques and scientific methodology.

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Please note that this is very much a subjective piece, being simply a personal study for the purposes of furthering my own understanding of how this experience was crafted.

Methodology

Emotion Model

Shave et al described the following list of Primary and Secondary Emotions in 1987:

  • Love
    • Longing
    • Lust
    • Affection
  • Joy
    • Cheerfulness
    • Zest
    • Contentment
    • Pride
    • Optimism
  • Surprise
    • Surprise
  • Anger
    • Irritation
    • Exasperation
    • Rage
    • Disgust
    • Envy
    • Torment
  • Sadness
    • Suffering
    • Sadness
    • Disappointment
    • Shame
    • Neglect
    • Sympathy
  • Fear
    • Horror
    • Nervousness

I grouped the Primary Emotions, and their respective Secondary Emotions into High and Low categories. Where High connotes happy like feelings and Low connotes sad like feelings as follows:

High = Love, Joy and Surprise.
Low = Anger, Sadness, Fear.

emotions
Emotion Hierarchy

Continue reading Elfen Lied – A Study of Episode 1 →

Game 2015 Dubai

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Dubai’s is turning into a major hub for gaming in the Middle East, and this September there was an awesome game convention by the name of Games 15, which I was lucky enough to attend.

games_dubai_2015

At the convention were game exhibitors, distributors, artists, musicians, hardware and software vendors. Every major publisher was present namely Microsoft, Sony, Capcom, Konami, 2K and Ubisoft. A fine collection of folks.

Speaking of such Lara Croft was there. We didn’t hit it off…

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Since Lara was kind enough to spared my life. I had the chance to try lots of upcoming games including Battleborn, Assassins Creed Syndicate, Tom Clancy’s The Division, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, Street Fighter V, as well as getting some goodies.

Aside from that there was loads to do. Busting out some moves at the Just Dance open stage, rocking out at the guitar hero stand, grooving to the DJ Academy tunez, immersing oneself in the variety of virtual reality technologies demos,  to trying out delectable game themed caramel sweets. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

On top of all that I met Yoshinori Ono!

yoshinori-ono-and-me

Good times.

If I’m in the Middle East this time next year I’ll be back.