A Science Fiction FIlm

Pre-Production

The second project given to us was to create a short film (4-6 minutes long) on a genre that was pre-selected for us. This film also had to be based around the plot or ideas of one of 5 popular fairy tales or children’s novels. The 5 novels are Little Red Riding Hood, The BFG, The Three Little Pigs, The Emperor’s New Clothes and Rumpelstiltskin. We started our project by doing some research into each of these and came up with some key ideas and plot details that were associated with them.

·         The Emperor’s New Clothes: Vanity, Trickery, Embarrassment

·         Three Little Pigs: Survival of the Fittest, Evolution of Thought, Brain over Brawn

·         Red Riding Hood: Impersonation, Karma, Naivety, Contrasting areas of danger and safety

·         The BFG: Secrecy, Self Sacrifice, Prejudice

·         Rumpelstiltskin: Deception/Lies, Consequences, Climatic Ending, Gambling, Desperation, Social Hierarchy

After this we started to come up with some basic plot ideas. I put forward the idea of a synthetic eye that had gained a consciousness. This eye was implanted in a person and you would see that person’s life from its perspective. This could have been related to any of the stories as the host would have been one of the characters from a story. It is called A-EYE. Our next idea was a combined effort and stemmed from the story of the BFG. Using the idea of dreams being used to convey a message or to tell a story we decided to put the main character inside a dream. We also wanted to go classic science fiction and this meant we definitely had to have a robot. The idea formed into a story about a boy who dreamed of being a robot. He was miserable in real life but had all the power in his dreams. This idea appealed the most to all of us and we began to brainstorm ideas.

We came up a three piece story which developed his confidence and power in his dreams. He will start in his room bringing to life inanimate objects to be his friends and communicate with him. In his next dream he will have full control of all the elements of the dream being able to move all the objects in the room with his power and be able to move with speed not possible of a normal being and in the final dream he plays round in his dream teleporting from place to place. All these things we would consider to be science fiction. In between the dreams you get a glimpse into his real life to see the stark contrast between his two realities.

With the story set we drew up a basic story board and script and headed out to take some pictures of shot angles and locations for the movie. After this was done we decided it was time to move onto production.

Oh and we also made the suit

A Drawing Robot

Day 01

With only an afternoon to work with on the today we decided just to sit down and brainstorm what we would do rather than just rushing in. I thought this was a good idea as we would start with a solid base to work with. We broke up and made our way home to some research

Day 02

Today we decided that we would use an ink based art form. We will have a trolley which moved along tracks to distribute ink in a line. The movement would be constant and the amount of ink dropped would be determined by a catch that moved back and forth across the end of the dispenser in relation to the sound level. This seemed like the easiest way to distribute ink as we will only need to program a linear relationship between sound levels and catch movement to make it work. At the end of the day we started to build the frame and got a basic rig that could move forward at a constant rate. Over the weekend I will work on the program and see if I can get it working as none of us were able to do it during the day.

Day 03

After the weekend I was unable to program the linear relationship. We quickly changed the programming as this was an integral part of our system. By changing the programming to move to the beat of the music and drip at a constant rate we could still make a robot that would make a pattern based on music. Today we also had to decide on a medium and we did some research and came up with the idea of using water. We did some tests to check what the ink would do when it hit the water. These produced very interesting results that would create a unique image.

 We worked well today and got all the final ideas set in place as well as building a simple track and reprogramming the system.

Day 04

We decided today to make a new set of tracks that would better support our robot. With the help of the 3D Lab technicians we were able to build a frame from a few piece of steel bar. No skill was required as we only had to bend the ends to 90° and then spot weld them in place. The previous night we had also collected a few bottles to use as the dispenser and we decided we could use a Ch’I bottle for this purpose. We did a dry run of the dispenser using  water colour paint and paper. The results came out very pleasing

When I got home I found out from a family member about marbling inks. These are slightly insoluble in water and would be perfect for our project.

Day 05

With the addition of water to the project we had to make a suitable container to hold  the amount of water we would require to make a good image. We once again went up to the 3D Lab and with the help of the technicians built a box. Last night I had driven in with a sheet of glass to use for the side of the box so that we could get clear images of our robot in action. After measuring and cutting the pieces we nailed and screwed it together and then preceded to water proof it with silicon. Once this was complete we decided to test it but found when we did this it had 2 leaks. We decided to leave fixing this till tomorrow so it could dry. 

With the addition of the marbled ink our range of colours also increased and we decided to try to incorporate all of them at once into the final images. We made a new dispenser out of the original Ch’I bottle that would house all6 of the marbling ink canisters. This would let us use the inks own canisters as the dispensers.

After we constructed this we added an extra motor that would rotate the dispenser so the colours would fall in different areas each time.

At the end of the day we all felt confident that we would get this finished tomorrow

Day 06

When we arrived this morning we were all in high spirits.

 We finished patching the box and got ready to start the first test. When we ran the program we were a little surprised to find that we couldn’t get that ink to drop.

 We had assumed the motion of the robot moving back and forth would be enough to cause the drops to fall. After this was discovered we were a little stumped with what to do. We tried pricking a small hole in the back of the bottles to allow air flow and to break the vacuum. This was partially effective as it allowed ink to flow but could accidently cause it to flow to fast releasing all the ink in too short a period of time. After this we talked to some of the year 2’s and they suggested changing the rig so that it flicked the ink. The back and forth motion created would create enough G force to make the ink drop. We chose to change to this method and it turned out to work ok. The rig was simple enough to change as we only had to switch the motor into a vertical position.

Now that we had a working robot we could record the final outcomes. We recorded one using all the marbling ink. Although it took a long time to run the outcome was very interesting and we were able to get some good pictures.

We did our 2^nd in a dark room with glow in the dark ink. I found these images to be even more interesting and strange.

We decided on these images as our final pictures.

NXT Mindstorm Robotics

Day 01

On our first day first of robotics we were asked to design a chess piece thinking, for starters, about its character type and personality. In the end we settled on a piece called the ‘Opportunist’. This piece was able to slip past opposing piecing to gain an advantage.

After the piece was decided on we were introduced to the Logo Mindstorm NXT robotics system and we were told to make a robot out of the lego and have it play out the move. This caused all sorts of problems as nobody had used the program before. After many difficulties with the bod and its programming we were able to make it play out its move

Day 02

In the morning our bots were presented and a race occurred with all the groups playing out their move. With no sensory systems all the bots had trouble keeping to their paths and a small amount of chaos ensued.

The next task given was to produce a robot that could make its way to a point and ask for /or take something.

We decided early on that the bot would use a light sensor to follow out a predetermined path. With the mobility easily taken car of the task of getting past doors and asking the questions was undertaken. An ultrasonic sensor was used to find obstacles in the way and a colour sensor let the robot know when to talk.  

Day 3

With the bot complete we let we laid out a path with masking tape and let it do it’s stuff. It ran flawlessly even though it was a little slow.

All this work in the NXT program was leading toward the final project. A robot that could “DRAW”

Simple Tasks and a Stop Motion Animation

Our stop motion animation was born from a series of simple tasks set out for us by our lecturer. At the start of the day we each chose a specific role in the activity with no knowledge of what each of these roles were meant to do. These roles were the Actuator, Controller, Sensor and Tracker. It was later explained that the Actuator would do whatever the Controller said. The Controller was then limited by a set of cards that he would randomly draw from giving him the next command. The Sensor and Tracker each recorded the while process and the path and activities completed

Right from the start we chose to display these tasks in a Stop Motion Animation as from prior experience we knew this to be a fun and interesting medium to present our work in. We decided on a constant for our STM and chose to keep all shots centered and from a behind angle which never revealed the Actuators face. This came in handy as it added to a key idea thought up later.

After this was decided two things occurred.
One: we moved around town documenting the experiences of the actuator
Two: I got to be completely free of responsibility for any actions as the Actuator that would have normally felt embarrassing or may have caused issues. The result was quite a fun experience.

Once the pictures were taken we returned to the studio to start producing our STM in iMovie. Getting it started and running wasn't the issue. Making it interesting was. Just running as it was led to a boring result with little emphasis on the tasks. We decided to make the tasks stand out by desaturating(removing the colour) and then returning it only to parts of the image key to the tasks. A slightly longer pause also emphasised the key points. After that music was added and the frame rate was adjusted to fit making the video flow together nicely.

The final outcome was a very pleasing result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybdR7IXnaE0

Issues that we found after were a lack of a key idea to base it around and not quite enough consistency in our shots. With a little more time I believe the result would have been quite different and possibly more captivating for the audience

Mind Mapping and the Gephi Program

The task of mind mapping started with a simple set of questions designed to emphasis the meaning of 2 degrees of separation. THis task revealed to all of us that even though we are from different areas of NZ or even from overseas there are tties that connect us all.

By using a note pad and some thread we were able to produce a simple mind map for which these connections could be shown

Our next task became that of interpreting the our collective data into a form that was easier to understand. For this we used a program called GEPHI. Gephi presented its own problems for us as with no prior experience we all managed to find some difficulties with it.

At the end of the day we split up to make our own attempts at interpreting and designing around the data. I chose to stick with a simple natural shape opting to base mine around the colouring and shape of a leaf. 

This was more difficult then it first seemed but the end outcome helped to better represent the data in a more understandable format.

Once this was done we returned in the morning to share our respective outcome with each other. Our first critique session started with each of us f=judging each others work and asking questions or offering advice. Eventually my design was chosen to be re worked and edited to produce the best possible outcome with our understanding. The final outcome was further improved the ease with which our data could be viewed