Thought it was time for a quick update on the progress of my honours project.

My written work is coming along nicely, currently sitting at approx 4000 words, and according to my supervisor its looking good.

Main progress of late has been the actual practical side of things.  After encountering some problems with file sizes and sound, I decided to switch the final output of the animation from .swf format to 3gp.

The switch to this format has also allowed me to create the animation at 25fps instead of 12fps which my handset was restricted to. This means the animation can now incorporate both motion and shape tweens, and it also allows for the inclusion of gradients.

Still alot of work still to complete, the recording of the narrative, inclusion of sound effects and relevant soundtrack needs done.  Also some scenes need to be converted so that all the animation is included when exporting.

Preview below.

Another example created in After Effects using Particular plug-in.

 Whilst digging around my hard drive, I found some footage that I created nearly 2 years ago using After Effects 6.5 and some Photoshop filters.  From memory, I think I followed a tutorial in Computer Arts magazine, then modified the filters to get the desired effect I was looking for.

No Sound on the clip.

Another video containing footage shot in the Maldives, 2005.

Footage taken from a trip to Dubai in 2005

I meant to post this a while ago, but I only just got around to getting it uploaded today.

This is demo uses Trapcodes particular to determine the treble and bass levels in the sound, transforming them into visual soundwaves.

Today I was lucky enough to spend the afternoon with Ronnie Browne of ‘The Corries’.

During the interview, he spoke openly about his time performing with Roy and his love for Scotland. With over 30 mins of footage, filmed in both digital and HD format, its going to be a hard task choosing from all the different questions Ronnie kindly answered for me.

Watch Snippet

As part of our final year we must undertake persuasive narrative module in which we get the opportunity to create a mini documentary on a subject of our choice.

After some research and a quick trip down memorylane I deciced to try to organise an interview with Ronnie Browne of the ‘Corries’.

Luckily enough for me, Im off to Edinburgh to interview him on the history of the duo and get his views on modern Scottish culture.

I must admit Im rather excited but nervous.

Decided to persude GI Joey to come out of retirement to make a special appearance on the blog.  Actually I got fed up of waiting on youtube to accept my new files so decided to change over all the videos I have hosted on there over to .flv format.

As  Im limited to the amount of webspace available to me, I decided to do a quick test to  check file sizes,  and I couldnt resist getting out GI Joey.

More information regarding this video will be on my new portfolio which is currently in progress.

Til then, watch the promo here.

‘If it moves Im interested !’  A favourite quote of mine.

Anyways, having spent the last few weeks reading for my dissertation I decided it was time for a break.  At the moment Im tinkering about in After Effects.

This motion test includes some rough bluescreen footage combined with some muzzle flashes and a animated arrow.  Kinda reminds me of the intro to Casino Royale.

Check it out here.

I have also been tinkering about with a tutorial that takes audio from an mp3 and visualises the bass and treble into motion graphics.  It looks fantastic onscreen, the file size however is rather high, I may use youtube to host it – I will let you know.