519/521 Film Screening
Several people expressed an interest in everyone screening their favorite 519/521 Films on October 13th, 2004. Please let me know if your interested!
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September 29, 2004
September 28, 2004
532-Project #2
OBSERVATION/QUESTION: We are living in an age where imagination and creative thought is being replaced by packaged, branded, and manufactured objects. Public schools are eliminating music and arts programs due to lack of public funding. Is it possible that we are creating a culture of unimaginative consuming drones?
The ultimate interactive experience would give users a heightened awareness of their own creativity & imagination, empower them to evolve and use their creative abilities and imagination in their personal and work life. This experience would encourage individuals, groups, and families to share their insight with others during and/or following the experience.
The CREATIVITY & IMAGINATION MUSEUM/WORKSHOP would provide this ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE in an ever-changing environment. Imagine a place that provides experiences for people to explore their ultimate creative potential.
Exhibit #1 - MAGIC SHADOWS:
A group of energetic children are asked to explore their own shadow and a few energetic volunteers are selected. One walks behind a large screen that looks like a tall movie screen with a proscenium sized picture frame. We se her shadow cast on the screen as she positions herself to stand in the middle with arms stretched wide. She makes a few moves to demonstrate her shadow creating abilities.
The children in the audience are asked to shout out their favorite 2-legged animal and her shadow morphs into that animal. The shadow’s form changes to an animal and continues to parallel her movements. The viewers are asked to name something mechanical that moves and her shadow morphs into a large robot. The young participant is visible from the sides of the screen and the viewers call out a few more requests before the next child takes his turn.
Combining the following primary elements would create the “magic” of the shadows:
• Contour/motion capturing technology
• Kinematic puppets/cutouts database
• Digital rear screen projection.
September 11, 2004
532 Final Production
The "Present" section of the 12-Screen IM Montage is now 30 seconds, including the explosion. The last frame still captures, to be used for the transition in the "Future" section, are posted on http://homepage.mac.com/sachercreative . Select the USC Link and use "zml" as your password.
September 08, 2004
CNTIN-532 Project #1 LAYERS
The 12 and 6 screen tests went extremely well, considering it was our first trial on the projectors. The sinking illusion was powerful and felt like a combination of the Haunted Mansion “Stretching Room” and one of the Epcot “Circle Vision” theaters (pardon the Disney references).
We may want to think about a minimal text overlay for the “History” visual elements. Just a few words like “History”, “Interactive”, “Analog”, and such could make the experience more meaningful to the first time viewer. A similar word overlay could be applied to the “Present Day” and “Future” chapters.
September 02, 2004
CTIN-532 Assignment #1B:
An image on a computer monitor is made up of pixels that are essentially square. An image displayed on a video monitor is analog and does not involve pixel shape. Nonsquare pixels are the most commonly used by encoding devices for video. When importing an image created by a square-pixel graphics program into a video editing program like Adobe Premiere, the square pixels are scaled to the nonsquare pixels for video encoding. This scaling results in a distorted image.
NTSC WORKFLOW:
1) Import your still images into 720x540 Photoshop file. Design the composition, as you would like it to be viewed, including layers (if applicable).
2) When your design is complete save a copy of your original as an “NTSC” version and compress the entire file to 720x480 pixels.
3) Import your new “NTSC” file into your video-editing program to create a properly proportioned image. This Photoshop image will now fit within the standard NTSC aspect ratio of 3x4, when viewed on a monitor and/or projector.
Go to “saving images for video” in the Photoshop manual for further information.
NOTE that the Photoshop image does not have to be limited to 720x480 pixels. The image above represents a 12x4 aspect ratio image. When NTSC compressed, and brought into a video-editing program, only a quarter of the image will be visible at one time. Vertical movement of the NTSC picture frame will make the images appear to be rising or falling.