Easter Update

So aside from gorging myself on religiously symbolic egg shaped chocolates, this is what else I've been upto over one of the most seemingly pointless holidays of the year...


Client Project...

After finishing what I thought at the time would be the final recording for my client project at Confetti studios (filming the radio play recording), I started my editing. This was no appealing task given I had over 4 hours of footage to trawl through and separate the best from the rest. I started by doing just that, then I organised my clips into an order which made sense for the film and started putting them together. Half way through this process it became apparent that I needed more voice overs to fill in the gaps or it just wouldn't make sense. I also needed to record some sort of conclusive section to end the documentary.

I managed to arrange another camera to borrow and use last week and film this final conclusive section and the extra voice over parts. After uploading it to my computer, my documentary was finally coming together and making more sense.

Then, as always, I realised I had another problem. Due to recording the final voice overs on a different format, they sounded completely different to the original ones I'd done - I knew this might be a problem, but with time running short and getting increasingly frustrated with this project, I ignored it and did them anyway - big mistake. Me and Tony also realised that a fair amount of the content of the documentary was not really about the radio play, but more so about Tony's own personal connection to it - I blame this on the fact that Tony enjoys talking about himself more than his work...In retrospect I should've asked him to talk more about the radio play itself but initially thought the idea of the film was to provoke intrigue about the radio play by not actually providing you with much information about it - again, big mistake.

Fortunately, it's not too late to ratify these problems. I'm going to go back to the booths this week for one last professional voice over recording using the same format and equipment I did recording the first one - this recording will cover all the extra voice overs as well as enough information about "That'll be the Stardust" to drown a horse...not that you'd want to. I've made space for this extra section to fit nicely into the rest of the documentary and thoroughly believe that once it's completed, I'll be able to finish off my film to the best I can and will finally be able to muster up a smile for my work!

PRP...

This has really taken a backseat this Easter it must be said, but I haven't forgotten about it all together, I'm still waiting for results to be able to complete my last two evaluations. For some reason, the people who usually help me out with these results have completely lost the will to do them, either way I only need a few more, and should be able to continue with this project as soon as I have them. Then there's the presentation to think about...

SPP...

As well as applying for an internship at the BBC, I've also started a proper multimedia portfolio on Flash. Apparently ADOBE own Flash now so I might stand a chance of creating something fairly good.

That's all folks!

Client Project: The Last Few Days

In this last week we've managed to cover the location filming in Oldham, Blackpool and almost the entire pre-rehearsed scene. It's been a busy week and i've recorded an absolute shed load of footage - which i plan to spend most of the next week going through and editing but will have more time over Easter to sort this out.

There are two more things I need to record for my client project, the voiceovers to tie the entire documentary together and the final shoot at confetti studio (details in the post below).

March Update

My PRP is coming along fairly well, I'm just finishing off the 3rd and 4th artefact and currently awaiting results to contribute to the final two.

As for the client project, me and Tony decided we could salvage my project my focusing the film less on interviews with the team, and concentrating more on the radio play itself, the two films that inspired it, and the history of Tony's personal and professional connection to the era, the films and his script for the radio play, which has now received the official support of Ray Connolly and Lord David Putnam, who wrote/produced the first two films. I've also written a new pre-rehearsed scene for the film to add a bit of comic relief.

The rough breakdown of how the documentary will work now looks like this:


Introduction to the films/content

Voice over of introduction to the idea, the films & Tony Marshall
Film Clips
Original team/plan
Tony’s 2nd Interview/Dallas connection (Larry Hagman)

Locations

Oldham Edge/Blackpool – dedication to the original films
Personal interest in films and music
Film clip of the line ‘if it weren’t for me, you’d still be catching crabs in Oldham’ – Putting Oldham, Tony’s birthplace on the map

Letters/Emails – backing from writers

Showing the enthusiastic responses from Ray Connolly and Lord David Putnam

Tony’s Routine - the prerehearsed scene

Tony is a very serious actor and to be able to get into the character of Jimmy Mclaine Jnr, he has to endure a demanding routine:

The character was a heavy drugs user, so to get into character {Tony using drugs & drinking} – my sisters house
He then plays air bass for 5 hours every day {Tony playing air Bass} - confetti
Tony reads the script every day {Tony reading the sun, then noticing the camera, and quickly throwing it down} – my sisters house
Tony also wanted to lose weight for the character {Tony eating a mars bar then swapping to a nutrigrain one} – outside my house
To keep in line with the bad boy image of rock stars, Tony has also been regularly committing petty crimes {tony breaking into a house & Tony stealing a handbag} – My house & outside my house
Tony also keeps his cool by pulling shapes in front of the mirror for upto 7 hours a day {pulling shapes in front of the mirror} – My House

The Music Review

Tony & David talk about the soundtrack, its relevance – Confetti Studios

Confetti Studios

The production of the Radio play – my own thoughts on the characters I’ve been given
Further interviews/performances
Music Production

Final thoughts/interview of Tony covering the original idea, his original team, the trials & tribulations and the future

It Hits the Fan

Tony has decided that the disappointing level of commitment from the members of 'Stardust Reflections' is forcing him to pull the plug on the Radio Play production which subsequently puts me, my documentary and therefore my entire client project in a very uncompromising position. Aside from the understandably high level of disillusionment i'm feeling, Tony seems to think we can still salvage a project from this as I he's still very enthusiastic about making the radio play. However, due to the almost complete lack of a team to use...the documentary will focus more on the background of the radio play and Tony's personal interest in making the radio play rather than the development of the actual production.

PRP Artefacts

Originally I was going to study two main genres of TV presenting; News & Popular Culture and evaluate the artefacts for the 3 age ranges of both genres. However, on reviewing/discussing this, I've decided to change the format of my artefacts. They will now be as follows:

1st Artefact: A description/explanation of the format of the tests, how i perform these them and how i'll get people to do them, giving the 2nd and 3rd artefacts as examples.

2nd Artefact: The evaluation of the results taken from the News presenter questionnaire.

3rd Artefact: The evaluation of the results taken from the Popular Culture presenter questionnaire.

4th Artefact: A description/explanation of the next two artefacts and how they are relevant to the test & what I expect/hope to discover.

5th Artefact: The evaluation of the results taken from the quiz show presenter questionnaire.

6th Artefact: The evaluation of the results taken from the fake presenter questionnaire.

PRP: The results are in!

So i carried out my tests on 15 people from three age ranges to see which style of presenting the news seemed more effective and easier to remember. My results are pretty surprising:
Results

Newsround Results

14 – 25

Average score of 78.4% correct

25 - 35

Average score of 77.7% correct

35 - 60

Average score of 79.5% correct



BBC Results

14 – 25

Average score of 41.1% correct

25 – 35

Average score of 58.8% correct

35 – 60

Average score of 65.5% correct

As you can see, every age range on average, answered more questions about the newsround clips than the BBC one. This either means that Newsround presenters are much better than BBC News ones, or my test subjects are all children at heart...evaluations to follow!!

Also, I have now aquired a full copyright license for my project to use all the music Tony wanted to.

Break my Stride

After a lot of time discussing, then planning, and finalising the 'break my stride' scene, my client Tony has decided to cancel filming it. After realising that the character he'd be portraying 'wasn't really him' we decided to start planning another scene to replace it that would try and include absolutely everybody in the team, even me! Despite this being quite a large setback on my schedule, I'm looking forward to planning the new scene though we will have to condense what would've been a few weeks work into a few days, I suppose this is the risk and/or excitement of having a real client for this project.

Soundtrack Update

The reply I got sent back from my email simply asked me to call the MCPS directly to inquite baout what sort of license I would need. I was told that I simply needed to buy a Limited Manufacture license for this as the project is a non-profit/ self-promotion tool. When me and Tony next meet, I plan to sort this license out (Tony has already promised to finance this).

More information about Limited Manufacture licenses, which will cover copyright for all non-profit products can be found here.

PRP

After a long string of problems,I finally have editable copies of News programs. The initial idea for my artifacts was to attain clips of News and popular culture programs which featured presenters and then show them to an audience of varying ages. Then I'd quiz them on the shows they just watched to give me a good impression of which presenters they remembered the most accurately i.e. which presenters were more effective in presenting their narrative.

My first idea to attain editable copy was to connect my computer to an aerial directly through a piece of hardware called a DVB (digital video broadcast) made by ODYS. This connected through a USB port and should've brought digital TV to my computer...it didn't. I still have no idea why it didnt work because I seemed to have everything set up perfectly, computers eh?

The second idea was to record the programs directly off the TV onto a hard-drive/DVD player connected to the TV. This seemed promising as I had access to all the freeview TV channels and I could record whatever I wanted, I just had problems transferring the data away from the hard-drive/DVD box. Writing back up DVD's from the Hard Drive didn't work because of compatibility issues; the DVD's would only play on the player that recorded them, and seeing as though it belongs to my parents, I couldn't use that option. As for recording straight off the TV onto DVD despite having set it up perfectly to the instruction manuals guidelines, it still just recorded onto the Hard-Drive instead. DVD recorders eh?

My final approach actually did work. I installed a Video Card in the back of my PC and connected it to an aerial, this meant I could access an analogue signal and watch/record all the terrestial channels. Now although this had a few drawbacks, such as medium video/audio quality and the fact that I could only record a few of the shows I'd orginally intended to use, it's certainly better than nothing. Back up plans EH!?


Here is the clips, along with the questions, if anyone has a spare 5 minutes, it's only 18 questions long and I'd appreciate your input!

News Research

There are two clips I’d like you to watch in succession, then to answer the below questions. If you do not know the answer to a question, please state so to make it a fair test. Don’t be tempted to cheat as the more honest your answers are, the better my research is!

The first clip has been taken from Newsround:





The second has been taken from BBC News:





Please watch both clips before answering/looking at the questions; this will ensure a fairer test.


Questions

Name:
Age:

Newsround

1. Where had the plane flown from?



2. What were the three suggested theories as to why the plane crashed?



3. What type of plane was it?



4. What celebrity musician is featured, and what has happened to them?



5. What is the rabbit called and where was he found?



6. How many rabbits are at the shelter at the moment?



7. What are the three main things that rabbits need?



8. What new sport did some politicians think should be introduced at schools?



9. Name some of the pro’s and con’s of teaching this sport in school




BBC News

1. How many protestors were shot dead in Kenya?



2. How many western governments have issued statements denouncing the violence in Kenya?



3. At what age did former world chess champion, Bobby Fisher die?



4. How did Fisher become controversial?



5. How long has it been since Kevin Keenan was the manager of Newcastle Utd?



6. Who did Keegan suggest he would ‘love’ to have work with him at Newcastle?



7. Which county was suffering dreadful floods?



8. How many flood warnings were in operation across the UK?



9. What did the summary of the weather look like?

Soundtrack

I now have a full list of the music which will be used in the Radio Play & the Documentary. I have contacted the MCPS and am awaiting final information about costs for copyright to use the material. Here is the full list of music along with the cover letter i sent to them:

Dear Sirs,

Myself and my colleague, Tony Marshall are currently producing a radio play based on the two seventies films ‘That’ll be the day’ & ‘Stardust’ starring David Essex, it is called ‘That’ll be the Stardust’. Accompanying it will be a short film documenting the making of the radio play.

We intend to use a selection of songs from around the era of the original films to accompany both the radio play and the short film, but would like to receive copyright permission before doing so. Both the radio play and short film are completely non-profit and will solely be used for the promotion of Stardust Reflections. Once our website is completed (www.srgunlimited.co.uk), the media will be uploaded to it and this will be the primary source for Stardust Reflections’ Productions.

The music that I require permission to use is as follows:

1.STARDUST - David Essex
2.WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS - Joe Cocker
3.LAYLA - Derek & The Dominoes
4.ONLY WOMEN BLEED - Alice Cooper
5.LONG TRAIN RUNNING - The Doobie Brothers
6.TALK TALK - Talk Talk
7.STRAY CAT STRUT - The Stray Cats
8.HEARTACHE AVENUE - The Maisonettes
9.DROP THE PILOT - Joan Armatrading
10.BOXERBEAT - Jo Boxers
11.MAD WORLD - Tears for Fears
12.RISE - Public Image Ltd. (P.I.L.)
13.IMAGINATION - Belouis Some
14.HEART & SOUL - T’Pau
15.LOVE RESURRECTION - Alison Moyet
16BETTE DAVIS EYES - Kim Carnes
17.ROMEO & JULIET - Dire Straits
18.SWEET HARMONY - The Beloved
19.ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL (PART ONE) - Pink Floyd
20.BREAK MY STRIDE - Matthew Wilder
21.THEME FROM ‘ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK’ - John Carpenter
22.A GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE - Sailor
23.MAD WORLD - Michael Andrews featuring Gary Jules
24.AFTERNOON DELIGHT - Starland Vocal Band
25.MY EYES ADORED YOU - Frankie Valli

The tracks will not be changed in any way nor will it be used to miss-lead, slander, or bring the author into disrepute. The work and the record label will also be properly attributed on both the radio play and the short film.

Many thanks & I look forward to hearing back from you,

Mike J Spicer
Stardust Reflections

storyboards

There are a few parts to this documentary which require more planning than others. Break my stride is a scene used to develope a ficitional character spoofing Tony Marshall, developed by me and Tony. Although I'm yet to get accompanying images for this, I've written a draft version of Break my Stride for the proposal.


That’ll be the Stardust
Break my Stride: Storyboard & Shot list

Break my stride is a scene within the documentary designed to introduce a comedic fictional character played by Tony. Originally this scene was going to be used to show Tony’s day-by-day routine for the documentary, but has been developed by me and Tony to look more like a comedy sketch to provide some comedic relief for the documentary. This part of the documentary will be set to the song ‘break my stride’ by Matthew Wilder.

It is based around a simple premise, that Tony is in an interview, yet everything he says in the interview contradicts the next scene.


Interview
Shot type: Mid shot
Location: Waverly Studios (pending approval)
This part of the scene will tie all the other shots together and the dialogue and direction will be as follows:
Tony
“Since we started the work on this radio play, I’ve been very busy. My day by day routine is so hectic I barely get a chance to sit down, or have any time to myself you know (cut to the ‘air bass scene’). So yeah, its been really crazy this week, I’m quite looking forward to some, you know ‘Tony time’ *laughs*’
Me
Could you tell me a bit about your daily routine?
Tony
Well I walk everywhere now (cut to ‘bus stop scene’). I’m trying to lose a bit of weight for the part so thought if I walk everywhere, then that would help. Other than working on this radio play, (cut to ‘bar scene’) I also do a lot of work for the community too, and I make an effort to help out at my local salvation army when ever I can.
Cut back to the interview
Me
Are you religious at all?
Tony
Never miss a Sunday! *laughs* (cut to ‘Church scene’) But seriously I am pretty religious, I always take time on a Sunday to praise Gods name, I always have done, (cut to ‘bar scene’) ever since I was a young boy. My parents were very religious so I always have been too, so yeah, every Sunday *laughs*
Cut back to the interview
Me
Well it seems that you’ve definitely…
Interrupted by Tony’s ‘girlfriend’ entering the room
Tony
Oh hi babe, didn’t know you’d be getting here this early, we’re just filming an interview at the moment!
Tony’s girlfriend
Sorry! Am I interrupting anything?
Me
Well we..
Tony (at the same time)
Not at..
Well, I mean, its up to you really
Cut to ‘the adulterous kiss scene’

Air Bass scene
Shot type: Mid shot
Location: TBC
Tony plays air bass to the song ‘break my stride’ by Matthew Wilder.

Bus Stop scene
Shot type: Long shot
Location: Long Row/Friar Lane
Filmed from across the road, you can clearly see Tony waiting for a bus.


Bar Scene
Shot type: Close up/mid shot
Location:
The Approach (pending approval)
Friar Lane
Nottingham
NG1 6DQ
Tel: 0115 950 6149
Filmed from outside the bar, you can clearly see Tony sitting at the bar and buying himself a pint of beer.

Church scene
Shot type: Mid shot/Long shot, hidden camera
Location:
St Nic’s Church Office (pending approval)
79 Maid Marian Way,
Nottingham,
NG1 6AE
Telephone: +44 (0)115 952 4600
Fax: +44 (0)115 952 4624
Filmed with two cameras, the first one (mid shot), Tony will be visibly aware of smiling and talking to it as he walks up to the door of the church and waves goodbye. A second camera (long shot), picks up the footage from further away and watches Tony wait till the first camera has gone and then walk away from the church.


The Adulterous Kiss scene
Shot type: Mid Shot
Location: Waverly Studios (pending approval)
This is basically the interview scene continued with Tony’s girlfriend sat next to him now.
Me
So how long have you guys been together?
Tony
A few months now, time flies when your having fun right!
Tony’s girlfriend
I really care about Tony, he’s so wonderful and handsome, and perfect! I wouldn’t change a thing about him
Me
So, you guys are very happy then?
Tony & girlfriend Together
Yeah, very
The couple then kiss
Tony
Right love, I best be off, It’s getting late and the wife’s cooking fajitas Mmm!
What follows is a smartly directed piece showing Tony leaving the building. The shots will looks as follows:

TBC


The Corner Walker
Shot type: Long Shot
Location: Hampden street/Gill Street
Shows Tony Walking around the same corner numerous times, wearing different clothes each time; this is to represent Tony’s busy life and the days passing by.



more to come...

First Days of Filming

Tony invited me to one of his production team meetings last Tuesday to do some interviews and to do some preliminary filming of Tony introducing the background of the radio play: That'll be the Stardust, as well as exhibiting some of the connections he has had personally with people involved with the original films (Stardust & That'll be the Day). The interviews were quite informal, and will probably be updated & developed throughout the duration of filming. The footage I got on Tuesday has been sufficient for a short (1 minute) pilot/trailer for the radio play (see below).







I have another meeting with Tony on Tuesday to discuss one of the segments of the documentary called 'Break my Stride', this will develope a fictional character based on Tony within the documentary to throw in an element of comedy to the film.

Client Project Proposal

I've done some informal planning of the client project to get a better idea about what order I'm going to film and edit this documentary in, here is what i've done so far:


The Making of…That’ll be the Stardust
Documentary Structure

Introduction

An Introduction to the two films that succeed this prequel to put the radio play in perspective and giving the audience a clear view of what era it is set and where it follows on from and progresses to. Also including a clear & detailed synopsis of the radio play.
Interviews with members of the cast discussing past experience, thoughts & opinions on the project.

The Making Of

The order of the following is to be confirmed.

Break My Stride

An insight into the daily routine of Tony Marshall as he prepares to voice the character James Maclaine Jnr.

Provisional comedy idea: To the music of ‘Break my Stride’ by Matthew Wilder with scenes intertwined between an interview with Tony detailing his regular good deeds and gruelling routine and shots of Tony enjoying himself in such a way that contrasts the previous interview statement. E.g. ‘I then help out at the salvation army’, followed by Tony getting himself a pint.

Ounce for Ounce

Further development of the character, following Tony’s great attention to detail by losing weight for the radio play.

The Team

Further interviews with members of the cast discussing past experience, thoughts & opinions on the project.

A short performance by the team.

Development of the characters by the team, trials and tribulations, problems and solutions; the development of the radio play.

Dea Sancta: The Jim Maclaine Legacy

More background to the character and the history of Jim and the Maclaine family/legacy built by his father.


A Glass of Champagne (music video) – A celebration of woman

Inspired by the Marks & Spencer’s TV advert, a short musical video representing the celebration of the female characters in the radio play.

That’ll be the Stardust

The production of the actual radio play performance and final piece.





Interview Questions

Neal
Rhona
Patrick

How did you get involved?
When/how did you meet Tony?
How long have you been doing this?
What other current projects (if any) are you working on?
What interested you about this project?
Do you take an individual connection/interest to it?
What do you think of Tony/Tony’s work?

Louise

As above &
The character James Maclaine Jnr. Suffers with mental health problems, working with mental health groups, have you ever come across similar cases? *REVISION NEEDED
Will Tony be well suited to play a character who’s losing his mind?


Charlotte

Madeleine

What made you take an interest in this project?
What do you think of Tony’s work?
Is there a personal connection or special interest you take in this particular radio play?
What previous work have you been involved with?





A Glass of Champagne

Locations

Town Hall
School Grounds
Internal staircase – Revision needed
Nottingham Castle
The Park
Salvation army
The Tram/a Car
Arkwright Building
Arboretum
Shots

Drum Shot – A clip of the girls, playing the song on the drums in time to the music. This shot will be achieved by either switching between each girl in quick succession throughout a few bars of the song or by mixing shots of them drumming in throughout the video.

Stairs shots – Taken from various angles and heights/positions, showing the girls smiling and walking/running/dancing down the stairs.
Day to Night – The progression of the video should start in bright lighting i.e. the morning and run straight through to the evening.

Demo

So I've filmed all the relevant scenes for my client project advertisement. Although the last couple of scenes aren't exactly how I imagined them, i'm happy overall with the results. I've edited together a rough version so I can test it and acquire feedback for the final edit which I should have finished by the weekend, this is the demo edit:









ANY comments/suggestions will help a lot

SPP presentation

In the styles on the previous post, here's the presentation on my future goals:









As below, clicking the image will link you to the photobucket version (which doesn't have the text cut off)

Proposal Storyboard Pictures

This is how I plan on the commercial looking, except without me clogging up your screens...







The last shot will be the pack shot (see below) and thats it!

Simulated Project Proposal Points

I've decided to make a storyboard on powerpoint with audio clips and live images to give a good clear idea of how this advert is going to look. Sorted out the production schedule, budget and the audio on the storyboard so far. So now I just need to do the rest....

I've also designed the product and sorted the pack shot out, I've got two which work around the same look, just not sure how to arrange it yet. So if anyone is reading this, opinions would be helpfull!


PACK SHOT ONE

PACK SHOT TWO


Tomorrow I'm going to drag a buddy around town to take pictures of me imitating the scenes in the advert. These are going to aid the storyboard.

FINAL YEAR

As this is the final year, i'm going to make a concious effort (as oppose to an unconcious one) to keep this blog updated with what I'm upto. Starting with my idea's for the simulated project, a commercial to advertise Insect Repellent....

Ideas

Brief

Produce a 30 second television advert for that entertains, informs and sells insect repellent. The advert must contain a three second “pack shot” at the end. Deliver as a DVAVI (none compressed).

Insect POW

My first idea is a spoof of the popular “Cillit Bang” commercials using an over enthusiastic and dramatic actor who seems to shout every line of dialogue given to him.

For those who forgot about the "incredible advertising sensation" that was the cillit bang advert, here's a little reminder:

The basic idea of how the advert will run is as follows:

1. The product is introduced

“Hi! My name is Reginald P. Ramshanklestein and I’m here to tell you about a great new product! Insect POW!”

2. The product is demonstrated

“Simply spray it on the little bastard, wait five minutes, and then watch the fireworks!

Scene showing the spray being applied to an insect, followed by the insect exploding

3. Enthusiasm about the product

“POW! POW! POW! SHIT!”

Scene showing various explosions

4. Reactions from the Public

Scene of the general public speaking but completely over-dubbed to show appreciation for the product instead. Followed by a clip from an old film with dubbing.

5. More enthusiasm

“I’m so proud of this product; I put my name on it!”

6. Pack shot

“Insect POW! Kills insects, until they’re dead”

Resources

Location

· White room

· Kitchen

Props

· Fake Fly

· Poster box with a nozzle end attached to simulate a large canister

· Packaging design

· Light explosives

Actors

· Someone to play Reg

· Someone to be interviewed about the product

Bug Out

This short commercial will follow one man through his daily grind as he gets more and more frustrated with a few flies that seem to be intent on annoying him. He eventually loses his mind and picks up a knife to dispatch one of these winged assailants, at which point he is stopped and it’s suggested that he doesn’t get bugged out, but instead gets “Bug out” i.e. the insect repellent product.

1. The main character get’s pestered by flies his entire day whilst he tries to get on with his life. They start they’re evil winged campaign on the poor unsuspecting guy whilst he’s brushing his teeth

2. They follow him to work

3. They annoy him at his office

4. They annoy him on the way home

5. He is sat at the dinner table with this persistent fly frustrating him further when he breaks, the music changes, the lights dim and he picks up a knife, raising it in a manner that suggests he’s about to literally murder this insect.

6. The music changes again, the lights brighten up, and a hand holding the product appears from nowhere to tell him “don’t get bugged out, get Bug Out!”

7. Pack Shot

Resources

Props

· Fake fly

· Large kitchen knife

· Product in can-form

Location

· Office

· Home

Actors

· Main character

· Product rep

Evaluation of Elephant Game

Problems with Code

For this project, my biggest problem with the coding was with Miss-labelled instances not matching up to the original code. In my game there's about 14 interactive instances which rely heavily on all the code matching the specific names of the instances. As my instances had quite long names; such as 'ellysnorkel_pic' for Purpo's snorkel, it came frustrating when I'd misspelled a single instance, I would have to search for the mistake through a lot of lines of code. Given the chance to do the project again, i would've simplified the names of these instances to reduce the chance of me making a typographic error. Also, I replaced code that requires you to monotonously repeat yourself (which would increase the chance of human error) like this:


function myPlay() {
_root.ellypic_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.ellymuffs_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.ellyphone_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.ellybling_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.ellybrolly_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.ellyglasses_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.ellyhat_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.ellyscarf_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.plane_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.sun_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.ellysnorkel_pic.replay(_root.myindex);
_root.myindex++;

if

(_root.myindex>=_root.ellypic_pic.no_pos() && _root.myindex>=_root.ellyscarf_pic.no_pos()
&& _root.myindex>=_root.ellymuffs_pic.no_pos()&&

etc...


with more simplified code like this:


function myPlay()
{
var finished:Boolean = true;

for (myObject in _root.positionObjects)

{
if (_root.positionObjects[myObject].replay(_root.myindex))
finished=false;
}

if (finished)
{
clearInterval(_root.myinterval);
}

else
{
_root.myindex=_root.myindex+1;
}
}

Problems with Design

My initial problems with designing Purpo elephant and his inventory stemmed from the fact that I hadn't really used Macromedia Flash before, and i found it difficult to draw anything realistic with the drawing tools included. I settled on the idea of making this game look very "cartoony" and simple, afterall, It is a game for kids, so it isn't really something that held the project back.
I based Purpo on another cartoon elephant by Jerry Cogan (which can be found at here). This gave me the basic shape for Purpo, and also gave me a guideline to the sizes I could use for his inventory of items.

Design Process and Evaluation of Purpo the Elephants Animation

Initial Ideas

My first idea was to have a series of animations attached to the objects in the inventory which would play when the elephant had said object placed on it. For example, should you place the umbrella on the elephant and press play, the program would play an animation of the umbrella protecting the elephant from rain. However, this wouldn’t have fulfilled the objective unless the animation played from the point it was placed, showing an example of storing information with action script.
The first step of my project was to design the basic components and apply action script code so that I could freely move the objects around the screen. I found a few good examples of this kind of Flash Movie on www.newgrounds.com such as the comedy game ‘Dress Osama’ (www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/38204) in which you can freely move around objects. I found this example game helpful because it shows good use of the simple click and drag function. I set about creating my elephant cartoon along with an inventory of items that the user would be able to append to the elephant. These are the items I designed:





After designing these on Macromedia Flash, I converted each of these pictures into ‘Move Clips’ and applied the following code to them in Action Script:


on(press) {
this.startDrag();
}
on(release) {
this.motion_x.push(_x)
this.motion_y.push(_y)
this.stopDrag();
}

This code allowed me to click on the items and drag them about the screen, making it free to create a number of ‘images’ for “Purpo the elephant”, for example:

This Picture shows “Purpo” along with the “Elly glasses”, “Elly bling”, “Elly phone and “Elly hat”. After creating an appropriately simple background on the stage on which this simple game can be implemented, I still needed to create a start screen which would explain the rules and then proceed to the main game page. I also needed to implement a code which would let the end user freely animate the objects in the inventory.



The “start screen” I created simply explains the rules in a fun way. I used the Kristen font (in Bold) for all the text in the game because it’s clear and easy to read, but also because it’s a fun text to look at, and the games target audience is primarily young children.