DIGITAL PRODUCTION 2

2703GFS
SEMESTER 1 2009
CONVENOR: LUKE MONSOUR
ROOM: S02_5.09
CONSULTATION TIME: MONDAY 12-2PM
COURSE OVERVIEW
Digital Production 2 (2703GFS) offers a comprehensive
overview of the various digital media forms of
production and distribution for the film and screen
industries.

Various models of production and distribution are

explored from data storage for networked distribution to
multi-purposed media production.

Students will engage in the theory and practice of

designing media for multiple outcomes and formats.
Digital production 2 introduces students to a diversity of
platforms for screen media including disc based, tape, internet
and projection environments.

The focus is on both the static and the moving image as

components of the craft of filmmaking.

Technical aspects are emphasised with practical sessions on

manipulating the digital image at the level of layering,
composition, scale, resolution and texture.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
The course serves as an introduction to developing technical
competency in manipulating the video signal and digital
data of moving and static imagery.

The specific learning outcomes of this course are to provide

an introductory level of engagement with the digital arena of
image making that will be further developed and expanded
in other courses within the disciplines of screen media.

It provides the underpinning of technical knowledge

required for editing, generating title sequences and screen
composition. Students will be required to apply
combinations of technical and expressive skills in relation to
group projects.
PROJECT ASSIGNMENTS
Students will produce two project assignments in this course.
One assignment will relate to the moving image and the other to
interactive media.

The use of Adobe After Effects and DVD Studio Pro will be introduced
as new tools for development and presentation of digital media. The
moving image project and the interactive project will be collaboratively
produced.

Within the moving image assignment project students are encouraged to

work with a range of tools including video cameras, stills cameras,
Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and After Effects.

With the interactive assignment students will design and develop an

interactive work using DVD Studio Pro.
ASSIGNMENT 1
‘CITYSPACE’
THE AUTHORED DVD

AIMS:
This assignment aims to introduce students to the technical
processes involved with producing a DVD-Video using DVD
Studio Pro as well as the creative methodologies of production.

DESCRIPTION:
Using DVD Studio Pro and associated design and video tools, the
assignment requires that you produce a short interactive that
combines at least ten video segments in an authored interactive
DVD. You will be working in collaborative groups of 3 people.
STRUCTURING THE IDEA
The ‘cityspace’ Interactive DVD may be
explored through a variety of approaches:

Visual associations that expresses the feel of a

place

Through the form of a story development

Through using documentary techniques to

interrogate the dynamics of a community.
ASSIGNMENT 2
‘TIME TRAVEL’
THREE COMPOSITIONS

Aims: This assignment aims to develop students’ skill in

the technical and creative processes of input,
manipulation, compositing and output of a time based
moving image sequence.

For Assignment 2 students produce three ten second layered

QuickTime sequences created in Photoshop, After Effects, Final Cut
Pro and other relevant software.
Material is to be originally generated, although research on pictorial
and filmic imaging traditions is definitely encouraged.
Each composition is ten seconds and explores vertical layering and
the temporal manipulation of still images, video and animated
motion.
THE THREE COMPOSITIONS
 The first sequence is a title sequence for a film, festival,
theatre production, or media event on the theme of Time
Travel.

 The second sequence is a naturalistic sequence that

embeds live-action (camera originated material) within a
background into a seamless composite.

 The third sequence is an abstract collage that focuses on

the arrangement of aesthetic elements such as, colour,
form and movement to convey meaning.

 This is a group assessment.

CROSS PLATFORM ENVIRONMENTS

 Web
 Mobile phones

 Tape/monitor

 Projection, split screen, multiple projection

 Games & machinima

WEB
 Web TV
 Streamed/Streaming media

 Push/Pull technology

 Games - Web - The Sims family album

 Web/mobile phones

 Web/video

 Android
TV/WEB/GAMES EXAMPLE -
FAT COW MOTEL

 Robertson and Mayfield produced Fat Cow Motel as an Australia-

based 'multimedium platform space'. Comprised as a whodunit in
thirteen half-hour episodes, FCM allowed its viewers or 'players' to
interact with the narrative by participating in games and following
clues in order to solve a series of mysteries.
 These clues were distributed through multiple platforms such as
interactive TV via Austar, dedicated websites, SMS, voicemail and
email, and viewers could follow the narrative either on broadcast
TV or online.
 In the particular context of the mobile phone, viewers could enter
coded passwords in order to 'eavesdrop' on the phone conversations
of key characters in the series.
THE GAMING ASPECT OF FCM
 From mo: life. Q & A with Hoodlum Interactive - Thom Saunders talking
about the gaming element of Fat Cow Motel

“The community was the game. FCM created a set of dedicated players that
would play until they got every point, for a grand prize that was a plastic
meat-tray. There was a forum on the site and if rogue players published
scores from the current episode, other players would black-ban them and
not have anything to do with them. It wasn’t the prize, it was about not
getting relegated to the ‘cow pat club’ which is what happened if you
missed a point. They (the audience) invented the cow pat club, it wasn’t
part of the narrative. We had thousands of people play every point in every
episode for this plastic meat tray. It must have been somewhere between
100-200 hours per person. From a TV/eyeballs point of view that’s massive.
It was the same in terms of the pages that people were viewing in one
sitting. We were getting an average of 75 page view per session where the
average is usually 5 pages”.

http://www.hoodlum.com.au
MOBILE PHONES
 Mobile phone used more than just for portable telephone
communications.
 Portable microworlds of communication.
 High speed wireless third generation mobile networking
(3G) and Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11b wireless networking
standard – not ‘wireless fidelity’) and the adoption of
internet protocol technology poised to move beyond the
voice market and into that of mobile media and data
communications.
 Recursive relationship between mobile phones and other
devices/media.
MOBILE PHONES
 “Portable media devices and 'wearable' communications
technologies are becoming both increasingly ubiquitous
and personalised, penetrating and transforming everyday
cultural practices and spaces, and further disrupting
distinctions between private and public, ready-to-hand
and telepresent interaction, actual and virtual
environments.”
Ingrid Richardson
Murdoch University, Western Australia
http://www.fibreculture.org
FOR EXAMPLE…
 Wearable technology - GPS
 Digital video camera

 Email and web interface

 Personal digital assistant (PDA)

 MP3 player

 Personal Data storage (your memory in your

pocket…)
 Personal media centre

 Handheld networkable game console

IMPLICATIONS
 Games - trans-mediatic space and community of
players.
 Flash mobbing -Fash mobs are a large group of people who gather in a
predetermined location, perform some brief action and then quickly disperse. Flash mobs
are meticulously planned with military precision via rapid disbursement of information to
a secret network. Through the internet, would-be mobbers (mobbys?) are given a location
to meet where a flash mob representative distributes leaflets with secret instructions.
Watches are synchronized. Exact timing is crucial.
 New social regimes - social networking.
 New art forms
 New language? SMS, shorthand,

mobile phone syntax.

TAPE/MONITOR
 Tapes based video played back on a monitor
 Types of monitor - resolution and viewing environment.

 TV v Video monitor (RF, BNC, RCA)

 Video v Computer Screen playback

 CRT v LCD v PLASMA v OLED

 4x3 to 16x9 as standard ratio (many monitors 16x10)

 HDTV & terrestrial digital

PROJECTION
 Screening in cinematic context - digital projectors
4K/8K
 Multiple screen projection
 Video Mapping/Projection Mapping
 Portability - new media/artistic tradition screening
on material, smoke, water breaking up the
rectangular frame (I-Max).
 Screening in gallery/museum as time based work
 Within installation - sculptural aspects of the work.
 Interactive triggers through motion sensing, HMD
(head mounted displays).
 Holographic projection
 Projection on Smoke/compressed air

 Video/Projection Mapping

 http://www.vimeo.com/764513
PROJECTION/VIDEO MAPPING

http://www.easyweb.fr
GAMES AND MACHINIMA
 Games - game engines using real time 3D generated
environments.
 Developed for interactive potential and dynamics of
gameplay.
 Narrative may be of secondary concern.

 Screen language driven by spatial triggers and

navigational clues.
MACHINIMA
 Machinima (muh-sheen-eh-mah) is filmmaking
within a real-time, 3D virtual environment, often
using 3D video-game technologies.
 In an expanded definition, it is the convergence
of filmmaking, animation and game
development.
 Machinima is real-world filmmaking techniques
applied within an interactive virtual space where
characters and events can be either controlled by
humans, scripts or artificial intelligence.
By combining the techniques of filmmaking,
animation production and the technology of real-
time 3D game engines, Machinima makes for a
very cost- and time-efficient way to produce
films, with a large amount of creative control.

http://www.machinima.org/
 Machinima can be produced in several ways.
 It can be script-driven, whereas the cameras, characters,
effects etc. are scripted for playback in real-time. While
similar to animation, the scripting is driven by events
rather than keyframes.
 It can also be recorded in real-time within the virtual
environment, much like filmmaking (the majority of
game-specific Machinima pieces are produced in this
fashion). While both of these approaches have their pros
and cons, they are both Machinima-making techniques.
THERE'S TWO PATHS TO CREATING
MACHINIMA OF YOUR OWN.
The first involves recording the output of your favorite game to video (ala
Red Vs. Blue).

This approach has you record the output of the game to a video source
(camcorder or VCR), and then to capture this footage back into your
computer for editing and post-production.

The other path is bit more ambitious as is involves using an underlying 3D

game engine but creating entire new characters and sets (similar to the ILL
Clan's and Fountainhead Entertainment's work).

Once these assets are created, the production looks very similar to the first
path - recording the engine output, capturing the footage into a computer
and editing it with editing software.
 Iteliminates the time intensive processes of
software rendering.
 In addition, live-produced Machinima can be
created similar to a producing a live action film -
the camera records performance, action and
events as they take place.
 Now animation directors can direct puppeteers
as they manipulate the character models in real-
time. A live action director can also relate as
what happens is in real-time
Some Links…

 Red Vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles –

http://www.redvsblue.com

 www.machinima.org

 The ILL Clan: http://www.illclan.com

Video mapping
 http://easyweb.fr/indexenglish.html