Saturday, September 11, 2010

Animation tells story

What is creative multimedia? Let us separate both of the words and take a look. First and foremost, the word of ‘creative’ is a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts and multimedia is a combination of several media types in a single digital object or collection. There are many types of creative multimedia. Animation is one of the common type of Creative Multimedia. Basically, animation is the combination of visual and sound effects. When images of different position or movement are arranged together, we can tell story by using those images. But it is bored to look at lots of images and sometime we cannot understand the message that the author wants to deliver to us. With the alignment and movement of a certain group of images, we are able to create illusion of movement. When the illusion is added with sound effect and background music, it becomes more realistic and dramatic. By using this way, it is easier for public to understand the story.

Visual can be formed through motion capture like drawing or photography. With the modern technology, people can even capture what we see around us into video directly. Although using video camera to capture images around us is the easiest and fastest way to record scenes, video camera cannot record things which do not appear in front of us, what I mean is our mind, our imagination. Humans are born with imagination and creativity, it is a treasure from the God, so why don’t we make full use of our mind? With various type of storytelling through visual and background music like piano as well as violin, people will be attracted. In order to make our storytelling more interesting, appropriate sound effects like fire burning sound, water flowing sound, wind blowing sound and animals sound can touched audience heart effectively.

Nowadays, animation has been developed well. Apart from powerful human beings like Spiderman, Fantastic 4 and the incredible Hulk, machines that owns super power are always playing important roles in animation, examples like i-robot and Transformer. Not even those characters are always involved in animation, monsters and beast can be the main character too. The classic examples are the Beauty and the Beast, Spirited Away and Avatar. All these characters are created by human imagination.

When we talk about animation, it consist of lots of knowledge. A successful animation is formed by proper plot, characters and great script. Script is the bones of animation. Just like a building, without strong bones inside, it may collapse in no time. For animation, a good story already brings fifty percent of the succeed. Then, with the animation theories and techniques applied in every parts, animation becomes complete. We are familiar with the animation that heroes are the main character in the story. Usually the Heroes’ journey are similar. The story lines are made of twelve Hero’s journey Principle. All these knowledge comes from studies and research.

Different position have the different work because the area and apartment in animation is large. Script writers write legend, comedy, fiction, folklore and historical story. Director has to make sure the progress is smooth. He has to control everything like timing and places. The characteristics of the characters in animation have to be expressed well in the story. Sometimes, characters have to be simplified and stylized in order to show their expression and emotions. Animations that produced by Walt Disney like Lion King, Tarzan and Mickey Mouse show the creativity and imagination of us.

Different techniques like rotoscoping, photorealism and cinematography are applied by animators to deliver different messages. Animation is used as a way to tell the public to love life, protect wild animal, anti pollution and anti war. In traditional ways, animators produce animation through tweening, morphing, anion skinning, interpolated, frame by frame and flipbook. With development of new technologies, there are softwares like After effect , Maya and Flash. Animators use these softwares to manage and edit the movement, timing, lightning, angle, and modeling.

By making full use of animation as a kind of creative multimedia, animations like clay animation, object animation, model animation, cutout animation, graphic animation, go motion, pixilation, silhouette and puppet animation are created.

Last but not least, animation plays an important role of media that greatly affect the world. Unfortunately, nothing is perfect in this world. People often use the reliable media to convey messages for their own benefits. Animation is also one of the media people may be using. People believe that animation can be greatly potential for human life in the future. It is a leap towards the future from pencil drawing frame by frame on paper to tell story. In nutshell, animation is a useful media that delivered the messages to people among the society and it give a great impact to the society and the people.


Prepared by,

Lau Chong Siong

Chew Kok Yong

Tan Pei Lyn

Lee Xin Kuo

Friday, August 13, 2010

Class Exercise 5 - Juxtaposition (Analogy)

lectured by Mr. Ahmad Radzi Bedu

ANALOGY
- Is a comparison based on such similarity
- Consists of
◦ Metaphor
◦ Simile

METAPHOR
◦ Can be define as one thing is on behalf of another idea
◦ Comparison without using like or as

Example of metaphor
The road was a ribbon of moonlight
Time is a thief

SIMILE
◦ Sets two idea side by side
◦ Comparison by using like or as

Example of simile
As easy as ABC
As sweet as chocolate

Class Exercise
POEM WRITING

In the exercise, we were given few pictures and create a passage at least 4 lines of sentence to describe based on the picture.

◦ Describe the CONCEPT OF LOVE



Love is like chili...
I love you because your talking is as hot as chili
Always make me feel hot
Give me unforgettable memory
Remain the hottest words in my heart forever

◦ Describe the CONCEPT OF MAN or WOMAN



Woman is like mortar and pestle...
As hard as mortar and pestle to be defeated
Deep down all men to justify themselves
Showing strenght to one another
By using the hard work


◦ Describe the CONCEPT OF LOVE or LIFE



Love is like a cup of tea...
Sometimes it seems too hot,
Somtimes it seems too cold,
If u don't add sugar,
The taste will be very light.


◦ Describe the CONCEPT OF HAPPINESS



Happiness is just like time...
Hapiness appears from time to time,
Different time has different hapiness,
Once the time is finish,
Hapiness will become memory.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a poem i would like to share on this week.

Sweet death

In the darkest hours I dream
Feel the presence of your form come though the fog
In my mind, creeping slowly
Moving along the very essence of my thoughts
And I float..

'Awww, sweet death..'
I feel you.

Above all I feel my body move
Towards your darkened form
Your hands held out towards me
Grasping at my mind
Beckoning me closer towards your salvation.

Yet you let me linger, sweet death
Hold me just so close, yet still let me feel freedom
The touch of your fingers barely grasping me
Holding my thoughts prisoner
Yet still releasing me in the end.

What is it you want from me
Oh sweet death?

I feel your breath beckoning
Your darkness calling to me
Your hand reaching out for me.

Yet you slowly stay above,
Close, but still so far.

Yet I welcome you..

Eyes closed I reach out my hand,
Move towards your figure
And gladly give in.

Yet in thoughts your voice comes forth,
Smooth, silky, and soft, whispering
'No my dear, your time is not yet'..

And I softly whisper...

'What is it you want from me'
Oh sweet death?


By Moonstar
http://www.creative-poems.com/poem.php?id=268856

Class Exercise 2 - Mortar & Pestle

lectured by Mr. Ahmad Radzi Bedu

Mortar & Pestle

source: http://www.moonslightmagic.com/images/categories/mortar_and_pestle.jpg

In the exercise, I have to select five words from the mind mapping of " Mortar & Pestle " which done by lecturer.


BEAUTIFUL


Back to year 2010, people used mortar and pestle as a make up tools.















MUSIC

Back to year 2010, people used mortar and pestle as a musical instrument.















COOK

Back to year 2010, people used mortar and pestle as cooking items.















WEAPON

Back to year 2010, people used mortar and pestle as a weapon to protect their safety.
















DESIGN

Back to year 2010, people used mortar and pestle as cloth decorations.















Personal Reflection:
In the class, Mr. Radzi Bedu explain on the differences between left-brained and right-brained. Left-brained is more on logical mind while the right-brained is more on to creative. We must develop both sides of brain because no one is totally left-brained or right-brained.

Class Exercise – Juxtaposition



lectured by Mr. Ahmad Radzi Bedu

How merges goes wrong?

My answer for this exercise: FROG and COW


frog + cow = Frog Cow





















Personal Reflection:
In this activity, I know that not everything is suit, it is not every imagination is possible and suit.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Lesson 6 - Random Association

lectured by Mr. Ahmad Radzi Bedu

Class Exercise
Random Association

Situation / Problem
To create "SCARY IMAGE or OBJECT" that will instill fear among people through out the ages.

STEP 1
Random Words - KITTEN
1. Teeth
2. Blood
3. Eye
4. Color

STEP 2
Association:
1. Teeth : Sharp and long teeth > DANGEROUS
2. Blood : Lots of blood > DEATH/HURT
3. Eye : Sharp eye > WARNING/FEARS/ANGER
4. Color : Dark/Shadow > BAD LUCK

STEP 3
Drawing:
This is what i have drew in class. I use pencil to sketch it and render it to make it looks more horrible.













Personal Reflection:
From this lesson, lecturer teach us how to solve problem step by step based on some situation by using different ways of solution. It guide us to think creatively and solve a problem more effectively.


SHARING
I would like to a quote by this week.
“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.” — Edward de Bono

Lesson 5 - Juxtaposition

lectured by Mr.Mustaffa Muzer

JUXTAPOSITION
-Juxtaposition can be defined as placing two variable, side by side and their contrast or similarity are shown through comparison. Many creative processes rely on juxtaposition. By juxtaposing two objects or words next to each other, human brain will automatically associate or transfer meaning. Usually ‘turning’ something familiar to something less familiar or vice-versa.
-There are two types of juxtaposition, literary and random juxtaposition.

(a) Juxtaposition (literary)
It is refer to synonymous with the contrast, two objects or text that against with each other.

(b) Random Juxtaposition
It is refer to solve problems, design or other creative ideas to stimulate the pursuit of the two facing unrelated concepts or objects.


Below are some images that taken from google image.

The image of juxtaposition to show the differences in between man and woman.










This is another image which using the juxtaposition technique. In the picture, the guy in left hand side is the tallest guy in the world, the right hand side is the shortest guy. It make a strong comparison.










The example of juxtaposition that mentioned in the class by lecturer is the TV series, LOST.
It shows the comparison in between
-Love / Hate
-East / West
-Chaos / Calm
-Life / Death
...and etc.


Class Exercise - Juxtaposition

lectured by Mr. Ahmad Radzi Bedu

In the exercise, we were given two groups of word with a number

FLOWER 1 0 HEAD
LIGHTNING 2 9 RAIN
ICE 3 8 WOOD
LIGHT 4 7 TREE
FIRE 5 6 SIDER
DUCK 6 5 ROOT
DOG 7 4 MOUNTAIN
OIL 8 3 WIND
LEAVE 9 2 ROCK
FLY 0 1 WATER

STEP 1
◦ Suggest 3 lucky numbers which from 00-99

STEP 2
◦ Match 3 pairs of number between 00-99 with words

STEP 3
◦ Create a sentence for each pair of words

STEP 4
◦ Create images to describe or to support the combination of words

Therefore, there are my result for this exercise.


STEP 1
38, 74, 92

STEP 2
38 - Ice Wood
74 - Dog Mountain
92 - Leave Rock

STEP 3
38 - a ice cube in the shape of wood
74 - mountain that full of dogs
92 - a rock that surrounded by leave

STEP 4
ICE WOOD


















DOG MOUNTAIN
























LEAVES STONE












SHARING

The quote that i want to share for this week is...

“There is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.” — Martha Graham

Mind Map of "About Me"

Mind Map of ME



















Today, the exercise was given to create a mind map about MYSELF. And this is my mindmap. It is mostly use the technique of divergent because i start my mindmap in the middle. All the information about me are surrounding me.

Lesson 4 - Convergent and Divergent thinking, Logical Mindmap, Stereotype

lectured by Mr. Yap sau Bin


CREATIVE THINKING
◦ Convergent thinking
It generally means the ability to give the correct answer to standard questions that do not require significant creativity, for instance in most tasks in school and on standardized multiple-choice tests for intelligence.
Example, Solving many problems in a single proper way.

◦ Divergent thinking
It is a thought process or method used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions.
Example, Use the smartest way to reach a location in a shortest time.

MINDMAP
-introduced by Tony Buzan is a great tool for idea generation and brainstorming. It enhance both sides of the human brain and widely used in taking notes, research or generating new ideas.

Defining mind mapping
Mind mapping is a diagram which enhance both sides of human brain, often used to generate, visualize , structure ideas. Mind mapping is to stimulate and create interest in the individual and also to audience.

Examples of mindmap taken from google image














mind mapping can be devided into logical and associated mind map

◦ Logical Mind Map - Every word or image through stereotype links are directly related to the central theme
◦ Associated Mind Map - Can generate random words and the links between the words seem no connection.

A stereotype is a commonly held public belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions. Generally speaking, stereotypes are not based on objective truth but rather subjective and sometimes unverifiable content-matter.


SHARING
I want to share a quote on this week, which is...
“When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity.” – Linda Naiman

Lesson 3 - Novelty, Creativity, Innovation and Invention

lectured by Mdm.Tenku Putri Norishah

NOVELTY
Novelty is the quality of being new. It is something new which is amazing, original or unusual. It essentially exists in the subjective perceptions of individuals.

Can u guess what is this?

It is totally different from the old one. The design is new, this is what we call novelty. The objects in the images, i mean the dog, guitar and frog, they are lighters.













How about this? it is a piggybank for kids. The design is look like a Hippopotamus.












This is a Rubik's Cube, the different thing is it contains light so you can even play it when you are in dark. Novelty.
















CREATIVITY:
the generation of new ideas or a new way of doing things.

These are the creative products that i have found through google images.

Creative set of knife.















Creative keyboard that every button filled with various kind of colours.











INNOVATION:

Innovation is a process of making improvement on the products and make it more useful.

Special skate where the designer turn the normal shape into a leaf, it can let u feel like u are flying in the wind when u are using it.









This is one design that is really innovative. It combines slipper and shoes into one set. I wish i could have one also.










This cooking device is designed specially for modern picnic. People can bring it easily to everywhere because it is very convinient and useful which different from the normal heavy cooking device.














INVENTION:

I laugh when i saw this image for the first time. It might be funny but it is an invention too. Invention is always starting with new ideas, that is why it looks weird at first, may be after more explorenation on it, it can become a better invention and more comfortable while we are using it.

















CREATING IMAGE OF PUBLIC FIGURE

Takehiko Inoue

Takehiko Inoue (井上雄彦 Inoue Takehiko?, born 12 January 1967 in Okuchi, Kagoshima) is a Japanese manga artist, best known for the basketball manga Slam Dunk, which has become a success both in Japan and overseas. Many of his works are about basketball, Inoue himself being a huge fan of the sport, and many Japanese children started to play basketball because they read the manga. This in turn helped make basketball popular in Japan and across East Asia.

Inoue has been drawing manga mainly in male-oriented magazines. Inoue's name is ordered as Takehiko Inoue on his books sold in North America through Viz Media (Vagabond, Slam Dunk, and Real), although Gutsoon! Entertainment's earlier Slam Dunk translations in North America used Inoue Takehiko.


Works

Before his debut, Inoue was an assistant of Tsukasa Hojo in City Hunter. His debut in manga magazines was in 1988, and Purple Kaede appeared in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine. His manga tankōbon debut was Chameleon Jail in 1989, for which he was the illustrator.

Inoue achieved fame with his second manga, Slam Dunk, about a basketball team from Shohoku (Shōhoku) High School. It was first published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump in Japan from 1990-1996 and has sold over 100 million copies in Japan alone.[citation needed] In 1995, it received the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen and in 2007 was declared Japan's favorite manga.[1] Slam Dunk was adopted into a 101 episode TV anime series and four movies.

The next work he produced was Buzzer Beater, a collaboration with ESPN in 1997. About a basketball team from Earth that attempts to compete on the intergalactic level, it appears on his official web site in four languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean. Buzzer Beater was produced into a 13 episode anime series in 2005. In 2007 a second 13 episode series was produced. Both season were animated by TMS Entertainment.

Vagabond was Inoue's next manga, adapted from the fictionalized accounts by Eiji Yoshikawa of the samurai Miyamoto Musashi (宮本武蔵?, 1584–1645), which he began drawing in 1998. He received a Kodansha Manga Award in 2000[2] and an Osamu Tezuka Culture Award in 2002 for Vagabond. While still working on Vagabond, Inoue began drawing Real in 2001, his third basketball manga, which focuses on wheelchair basketball. It received an Excellence Prize at the 2001 Japan Media Arts Festival. Both Vagabond and Real are currently ongoing.

Inoue also did design work for MistWalker's Lost Odyssey, an RPG released on the Xbox 360. He is also a published sports writer, having written articles and columns for publications such as HOOP.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

One of his comic that i like the most. <> The drawing techniques is excellent, the emotions and feelings are expressed well through his drawing techniques.










His special technique that different from other comicers is he likes to use chinese caligraphy writing brush to draw certain scene. It is an owesome way to show the impact of the story.














SHARING

the quote of the week is....
“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” — Alan Alda

Lesson 2 - Defining Creativity

lectured by Mr.Mustaffa Muzer

Defining Creativity
From my point of view, creativity has the ability to create different but useful things to improve our life, just like interior design and product design. These design not only decorate and turn our life to become more interesting, it also let us feel more comfortable with it. Beside that, it can generate solution to solve issues or problems effectively as well as save times in our daily life.



These are the interior design images taken from google that i want to share.

I like how the designer apply the colour tone in the room, this kind of design is suitable for kids. It bring happiness to children. It can make a person's childhood
full of memory of joy.








Personally, i will do this to my room if i own one. Although the room is whole white colour, but the drawing on the wall and the bed, everyone can make it. The owner can draw anything and apply any style that they like on the drawing. This will bring us a unic design, totally different from the others. Every single line is come out from your own, your own style.





This kind of design has become more and more comman in our daily life nowadays. However, i still want to praise these designers. They throw the mindset of the older generation because in the past, if we think about toilet, we will think it is a dirty place. But now, toilets in shopping malls are all designed creatively. Users can relax and refresh their mind after a tiring walk to gain back energy.




What is creativity?

From the class today, i have learnt a lot of things and i have summaries the notes given by lecturer. Commonly, these are what i get from the class. Everyone can be creative.We just have to develope our ability and try to motivate ourselves as well as go beyond it.We have to work hard to develope our creativity to let it become the second nature of us. Just like what Thomas Edison said, Creativity is an attitude, combine with effort; 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

Problem is the key for us to learn and to improve our life, it gives us chances to face it,solve our problem and at the same time, solve it in a creative way.Creativity works similarly to muscles in our body. To have creativity easily accessible to us, we should use it on a regular basis. The more we use it in our daily life the easier it will flow.Usually there are many years of hard work behind every great innovation.

People who are successfull in their lifes usually struggle a lot.Majority of creative endeavors are improving upon concepts that already exist or putting several old concepts into a new combination. Creative idea is not a product of one person effort. It is a synthesis of many elements, ideas, context, knowledge, etc?Environment plays a big role to the creation of a unique or new idea.Brainstorming can be fun. The trick is to find one that works for you. Creative idea take place in the least expected environment.

Creativity belongs to everyone and it is not just the domain of an artist. Creativities can be applied in most aspect of our daily life.Everybody is different, we have to find the techniques that work better for us. There is no difference in the quality of one technique over another, only the personality of the users are different. Any technique that sparks your creativty more, just work on it.



Personal Reflection:


During the lecture, Mr.Mus told us that everyone are born with creative mind but different in perspective and point of views. YA! It is very true, some people always say that they are not creative, this is the thinking which kill their creativity. If we are not willing to work hard, how can we become creative? All of us are born with the ability to be creative. This is our human nature. Many great artists and creative people like scientist and inventors, they have left clear footprints in their work. Behind the creative, no one does not know their hardship and hard work for an artwork. The genius that well known in the past is like Leonardo Da Vinci. I very admire his work, it is very creative and i can see all the afford that he had done in his works.


These are some examples of Leornado da vinci's artwork i want to share.

Do you know how many secrets and history were hidden in this artwork? Scientist, film makers, artists, geologists, and historiographers study on it for hundreds of years. Try to imagine, how many hard work he has put on it and time spent on it to insert all his ideas and his technique.





This is the drawing that drawn by leornado, it is about the movement of human's body. In order to draw this picture, he has to know the anatomy of human being, this is what he study before he create a artwork.











We can see it from these two pictures, not only the outside of human body, he also study the organs inside our body. These are all hard works. This is why he can be a creative person.













There are also the studies of planes and other machines. Knowlegde are needed to be creative. Creative is not fully imagination. This is one of the images of planes that created by him.









From the lesson, we learnt about CREATIVITY in class. Creativity can not be obtained easily and we need times as well as afford, more afford, to learn from basic skills and every single part so that we can perform well in our work. It is not a easy job to be creative but everyone have the ability to be creative.


CREATIVE PORTRAIT OF A FRIEND

This is the images i draw for my friend, Stevan Lee,with Adobe Illustrator. In my mind, he is person that full of sense of humour. Although he looks cool from the outside, actually he is a funny person, friendly and smart. Thats why i draw him with tattoo and cool expression but there is a flower in his mouth.










SHARING
I'm going to share a quote by this week too, it is...

“Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.” — William James

Lesson 1 - Introduction to Creative Studies

lectured by Mr.Yap sau Bin

What is creative studies?
Creative studies is to introduce and provide creative thinking and problem solving in the face of problems and issues. There are several type of creative studies such as lateral thinking, mind mapping and new ideas.















Personal Reflection:

From the class today, i have learnt a lot of things. "creativity is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration", this is what people used to say. It is true because if we don't spend time and energy to think of it, we will not be a creative person forever. U will gain nothing if u on't put any afford on it. Just like our famous scientist, Thomas Edison. How to be a creative person like him? We have to think out of the box.

These are some images i found in google that related to creative thinking.

A man's head was split into half and there are lots of different contents inside it.









If we want to be creative, we have to really struggle hard, by then, we can just get a different idea from the others.













SHARING

I want to share a quote here which is...

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” — Mary Lou Cook