In this brief, we had to form a group of 4 to create a hypothetical studio and the start up plan. The plan is to have each member of the start up studio recognise their strengths, roles and responsibilities and through that plan and promote our unique selling point. We will also have to think about finance, cost of work and income we would want to earn to maintain the studio.
Forming a trio with Ruari and Kumail, we each worked on different parts of the studio. I worked on the finance and sorted out our necessities for start up, such as cost of equipment, softwares and bills. Alongside with the costs of a studio space as our work environment and cost of our work.
I also stated my skills, role responsibilities as my contribution to the studio group.
Calculating the costs into two separate aspects, I separated the cost of necessities and equipments and created a table illustrating the type of item, quantity, payment; monthly or one time payment and cost.
Cost of Necessities and Equipment [Slide]
The cost of the equipments and softwares are gathered from their respective sites; Cintiq 22 Hd from the Wacom site and the Windows 10 desktop from Microsoft. Adobe cloud from Adobe and TV Paint from TV Paint.
The choice of the equipments and softwares are based off of the models the university provides as those are sufficient for professional work.
Gathering the costs of electric and internet bills from infographics, I also got an average cost of a studio office space in Leeds through browsing through various office sites in Leeds.
With all that calculated, the total cost of the start up year would be a total of £15,054.81 as equipments such as Wacom Cintiqs, Desktops and TV Paint are one time purchases. After the start up year, the annual cost is then decreased to £8004.84.
Cost of Work and Salary [Slide]
The minimum wage in UK is £7.83. Using that as our basis, we decided our hourly rate would be around double of the minimum wage; £15.
Working from 9am - 5pm from Monday to Fridays, that is a 40 hours of work per week. With that, our weekly income per person would be £600.
Making our monthly gain a total of £2400 and our annual income £28,800. As a collective we would earn a total of £86,400.
However that is the income we would have stand alone without factoring in the aforementioned costs of necessities and equipments.
Factoring those into the income, we would earn a total of £71,345.19 for the start up year, and £78,395.16 for the following.
We would each earn a total of £26,131.72 yearly after the start up year.
Sunday, 22 March 2020
Tuesday, 3 March 2020
[A Life Cycle of A Star] Documentary Journal
[24/2/2020]
In the first week, we decided the potential topics we could explore for the documentary. The potential topics were Lego and Mental health of Males. I couldn't come up with a topic that would be interesting however I did find the mental health topic quite intriguing as it is a hugely relevant topic that could be explored and represented through animation.
Through further discussion, Ruari and Lewis did really enjoy the Lego idea and liked to work with the Lego medium. However I was not as enthusiastic about the idea of Lego, but did not mind working with the medium of Legos as it would be quiet interesting.
We will have to discuss the come up with a new topic to explore upon for the pitch on the 4th of March.
[2/3/2020]
As we did not come to a previous agreement on the topic. Ruari came up with an idea which was the life cycle of stars. I liked this idea way more than just the Lego topic, moreover using Legos to portray the topic would be very interesting.
I worked on the pitch for Wednesday and included things such as the reasoning for this topic, choice of medium and a list of sources we could potentially research further upon to help gain better knowledge and understanding of the topic.
Documentary Pitch [PDF]
After Ruari's presentation of our group pitch, we got some feedback from our course leader Matt and peers.
Feedback:
- Interesting topic and choice of medium
- Try to get primary research and an expert with the field to talk about the life cycle of a star
- Try to get in contact with Brian cox as our primary source
Plans for the following week:
- Find potential primary sources we could get in touch with and interview
- Make a email prompt to send out to our primary contacts
- Storyboard a potential narrative for our documentary
- Experiment with our Lego medium to see how we could produce it
[9/3/2020]
During this week, we had to prepare a research presentation to the class on Friday. In this process, I will be mainly conducting factual research on our chosen topic; a life cycle of a star, along with the help of the group mates. On top of the research, we will include mood board for our style, target audience, potential visuals and schedule.
On top of the research, I also made a Gantt chart for the project as a rough timeline we have from now till the deadline to give the group an outline of what should be done at what time.
I also made a rough storyboard of what potentially could be done to explain the life cycle of a high mass star.
A Life Cycle Of A Star Presentation
In the presentation, I talked about the scientific facts and process of the both life cycles of low mass and high mass stars whilst Rauri explained our target audience, storyboard and our future schedule.
Feedback
- As there is a lot of information to cover, depending on our chosen target audience, we will have to condense and simplify the information, or choose a specific 'path' of life cycle to talk about
- Develop a script after making that decision and send it to someone that can fact check with our script
- Get a 'voice of god' from Mandy.com to read our script
Plans for the following weeks:
- Choose our target audience and develop a script
- Send it to someone in University of Leeds in Physics OR Brian Cox to get approval
- Develop a storyboard for it
Due to the recent pandemic of COVID-19, we had to postpone our plan and make some changes in regards to the new deadline and schedule.
[4/13/2020]
After settling down with the whole situation, I reconnected with my group and made some initiations with our schedule. As our previous schedule was to start our production at the start of April, due to the situation, we had to sort ourselves and settle down first before we resume with work.
Due to the current situation, the deadline has now been postponed to 20th of May. The new plan is now to resume with the script and finish it on the 20th of April along with some style tests for the documentary.
Plan:
- Finish scripts and Style tests by 20th of April
- Try to get a Voice of God though Mandy.com [per recommendation from module leader]
Looking into the potential Voice of God though Mandy.com, I ran into an issue. The issue is that Mandy.com is a online hiring platform for professionals. Therefore a fee has to be pained depending on the demand of each professional. Along with that there are no voice samples that can be heard on some of the voice actors section, making it even more difficult.
Issue and Solution:
- Mandy.com requires a fee to pay professionals to do the voice acting, more over no samples of their voices are available making it a gamble
- As that may be an issue, I discussed it with my group and we agreed on us using text over speech if a voice Wass completely necessary; if not we will resolve with text in the documentary.
Plans for the following week:
- Finish script and settle on style
- Work on finalising storyboard
[4/20/2020]
As we agreed upon on focusing on one specific life cycle due to time limit, few decided to finalise on the life cycle of high mass stars.
After finishing the script, I asked my friends to see if they can provide an email to the physics department in University of Leeds to do a final fact check. I then sent the script and an email to the Leeds of University Physics department to fact check in hopes of having a response.
Email Link [University of Leeds Physics department]
physics.admissions@leeds.ac.uk
physics.student.support@leeds.ac.uk
Script
Script Document
After 3 days, we didn't get a response, therefore, we did some extensive research once more to fact check ourselves to make sure our information is consistent with the information we've looked into and started working on sorting out our animation.
As Lewis had already made a visual research board for possible styles of our documentary and the Nebula, we mutually agree to have him animate the first section of the cycle which illustrates the birth of a star. I then chose to work on the middle section of the cycle, from after birth to Supernova, finally Ruari will then be working on the end of the cycle, illustrating both how after a supernova, the star can result in a Neutron star or a Black Hole.
Issue and Solution:
- Due to time, we can't wait for a response for our script, therefore we had to fact check ourselves to ensure our information provide is accurate an consistent to our research
Storyboard [Final]
What went well:
- Clear and simple storyboard illustrating the middle phase of the life cycle of high mass stars
Improvements:
- Colour issue, the star is Blue instead of Red. [Blue = High Mass stars whilst Red = Low Mass stars]
Progressing with Animation, I worked on the animation and I finished the first two scenes which illustrates Nuclear Fusion.
[4/27/2020]
This style of animation was more unconventional as it was not a frame by frame narrative that I was used to, yet It was something more simple and easy to digest with mainly transitions and minor movements. The choice of this animation style is chosen to make the information more digestible visually as our documentary is packed with facts.
Staring off with animating what nuclear fusion is, I followed the storyboard and demonstrated how the fusion of nucleus' generate energy to combat the gravitational force.
Animation [Nuclear Fusion]
As this scene only is able to demonstrate the action of nuclei's fusing, I will illustrate how nuclear fusion keeps the Star alive due to the pure energy produced from this process.
[5/4/2020]
Continuing with the animation, I finished off the first half of the middle cycle explaining nuclear fusion; how it keeps the star alive, and nuclear fusion of hydrogen nucleus' to helium nucleus.
Animation [Gravitation Force vs Nuclear Fusion Energy]
I added this section in to make the information of the pure energy being generated through nuclear fusion more clear and to explain how that force is able to combat the force of gravity.
Animation [Nuclear Fusion Hydrogen to Helium]
As we had no one to voice over the animation, I decided to add in text in-between transitions to give an explanation of the process of the life cycle.
Plans for the following week:
- Finish the second half of the Animation [illustrating red supergiants and the supernova]
- Background sound for the documentary
[5/11/2020]
As we are focussing on sound this week to close up the documentary, Lewis found some sound effects that paired well with his scene; Nebula to a High mass star. Listening to the soundtracks that he experimented with, I decided to go with the selected three that can potentially be integrated in my scenes.
All three selected tracks are by David Fesliyan, whom composes music for mainly action movies and horror. The selected tracks are named "Warm Light", "Forever", and "New Heights". These sound tracks are able to convey the mystery vastness of the space, as well as auditory depict the weight of the high energy events such as Supernovas and Blackholes.
Animation [Red Supergiant & Supernova]
The second half took extremely long as there were a lot of additional animation to the storyboard that I changed in terms of scenes to make the presentation of the information visually appealing and interesting to look at.
Mainly at the part where I illustrate the core and the different element layer it has and the part where I used impact frames to illustrate and transition from the collapsing star to a supernova.
After finishing the scene, I combined both scenes and the total length of my section was 1 minute and 20 seconds. Although it is over the time limit, I believe it was justified with the easier animation. It would also be impractical to shorten or cut out information to fit within the time frame.
As the second half of my section took longer than expected due to changes along with additional texts and effects I have to add on, the final edit will be completed next week as the submission will be on the 20th.
Plans for the following week:
- Finish editing my section
[5/18/2020]
As animating took the prior week to complete, I edit my final section during the start of this week.
As Lewis provided a few song choices already, I chose the one that I want which is "New Heights" by David Fesliyan. I believe this background track sets a nice semi-mysterious and eerie tone to the space themed documentary. Moreover the track builds up nicely with the events of my section; from explaining the base essence of how a star stays alive to the pre-death sequence of it.
Animation [Supernova Final]
As the timing was a bit short for some of the text information, it was difficult to read. Therefore I had to adjust it during editing, adding a total 30 seconds to the final short of my section.
After editing my part, I decided to do the final edit for the documentary as well as it was just compiling Lewis and Ruari's final scenes to my section.
Finally, I added the credits to the documentary. To keep the space theme consistent throughout the documentary, I made the credits with a space background with the text scrolling into the background; similar to StarWars.
Animation [Final Documentary]
In the first week, we decided the potential topics we could explore for the documentary. The potential topics were Lego and Mental health of Males. I couldn't come up with a topic that would be interesting however I did find the mental health topic quite intriguing as it is a hugely relevant topic that could be explored and represented through animation.
Through further discussion, Ruari and Lewis did really enjoy the Lego idea and liked to work with the Lego medium. However I was not as enthusiastic about the idea of Lego, but did not mind working with the medium of Legos as it would be quiet interesting.
We will have to discuss the come up with a new topic to explore upon for the pitch on the 4th of March.
[2/3/2020]
As we did not come to a previous agreement on the topic. Ruari came up with an idea which was the life cycle of stars. I liked this idea way more than just the Lego topic, moreover using Legos to portray the topic would be very interesting.
I worked on the pitch for Wednesday and included things such as the reasoning for this topic, choice of medium and a list of sources we could potentially research further upon to help gain better knowledge and understanding of the topic.
Documentary Pitch [PDF]
After Ruari's presentation of our group pitch, we got some feedback from our course leader Matt and peers.
Feedback:
- Interesting topic and choice of medium
- Try to get primary research and an expert with the field to talk about the life cycle of a star
- Try to get in contact with Brian cox as our primary source
Plans for the following week:
- Find potential primary sources we could get in touch with and interview
- Make a email prompt to send out to our primary contacts
- Storyboard a potential narrative for our documentary
- Experiment with our Lego medium to see how we could produce it
[9/3/2020]
During this week, we had to prepare a research presentation to the class on Friday. In this process, I will be mainly conducting factual research on our chosen topic; a life cycle of a star, along with the help of the group mates. On top of the research, we will include mood board for our style, target audience, potential visuals and schedule.
On top of the research, I also made a Gantt chart for the project as a rough timeline we have from now till the deadline to give the group an outline of what should be done at what time.
I also made a rough storyboard of what potentially could be done to explain the life cycle of a high mass star.
A Life Cycle Of A Star Presentation
In the presentation, I talked about the scientific facts and process of the both life cycles of low mass and high mass stars whilst Rauri explained our target audience, storyboard and our future schedule.
Feedback
- As there is a lot of information to cover, depending on our chosen target audience, we will have to condense and simplify the information, or choose a specific 'path' of life cycle to talk about
- Develop a script after making that decision and send it to someone that can fact check with our script
- Get a 'voice of god' from Mandy.com to read our script
Plans for the following weeks:
- Choose our target audience and develop a script
- Send it to someone in University of Leeds in Physics OR Brian Cox to get approval
- Develop a storyboard for it
Due to the recent pandemic of COVID-19, we had to postpone our plan and make some changes in regards to the new deadline and schedule.
[4/13/2020]
After settling down with the whole situation, I reconnected with my group and made some initiations with our schedule. As our previous schedule was to start our production at the start of April, due to the situation, we had to sort ourselves and settle down first before we resume with work.
Due to the current situation, the deadline has now been postponed to 20th of May. The new plan is now to resume with the script and finish it on the 20th of April along with some style tests for the documentary.
Plan:
- Finish scripts and Style tests by 20th of April
- Try to get a Voice of God though Mandy.com [per recommendation from module leader]
Looking into the potential Voice of God though Mandy.com, I ran into an issue. The issue is that Mandy.com is a online hiring platform for professionals. Therefore a fee has to be pained depending on the demand of each professional. Along with that there are no voice samples that can be heard on some of the voice actors section, making it even more difficult.
Issue and Solution:
- Mandy.com requires a fee to pay professionals to do the voice acting, more over no samples of their voices are available making it a gamble
- As that may be an issue, I discussed it with my group and we agreed on us using text over speech if a voice Wass completely necessary; if not we will resolve with text in the documentary.
Plans for the following week:
- Finish script and settle on style
- Work on finalising storyboard
[4/20/2020]
As we agreed upon on focusing on one specific life cycle due to time limit, few decided to finalise on the life cycle of high mass stars.
After finishing the script, I asked my friends to see if they can provide an email to the physics department in University of Leeds to do a final fact check. I then sent the script and an email to the Leeds of University Physics department to fact check in hopes of having a response.
Email Link [University of Leeds Physics department]
physics.admissions@leeds.ac.uk
physics.student.support@leeds.ac.uk
Script
Script Document
After 3 days, we didn't get a response, therefore, we did some extensive research once more to fact check ourselves to make sure our information is consistent with the information we've looked into and started working on sorting out our animation.
As Lewis had already made a visual research board for possible styles of our documentary and the Nebula, we mutually agree to have him animate the first section of the cycle which illustrates the birth of a star. I then chose to work on the middle section of the cycle, from after birth to Supernova, finally Ruari will then be working on the end of the cycle, illustrating both how after a supernova, the star can result in a Neutron star or a Black Hole.
Issue and Solution:
- Due to time, we can't wait for a response for our script, therefore we had to fact check ourselves to ensure our information provide is accurate an consistent to our research
Storyboard [Final]
What went well:
- Clear and simple storyboard illustrating the middle phase of the life cycle of high mass stars
Improvements:
- Colour issue, the star is Blue instead of Red. [Blue = High Mass stars whilst Red = Low Mass stars]
Progressing with Animation, I worked on the animation and I finished the first two scenes which illustrates Nuclear Fusion.
[4/27/2020]
This style of animation was more unconventional as it was not a frame by frame narrative that I was used to, yet It was something more simple and easy to digest with mainly transitions and minor movements. The choice of this animation style is chosen to make the information more digestible visually as our documentary is packed with facts.
Staring off with animating what nuclear fusion is, I followed the storyboard and demonstrated how the fusion of nucleus' generate energy to combat the gravitational force.
Animation [Nuclear Fusion]
As this scene only is able to demonstrate the action of nuclei's fusing, I will illustrate how nuclear fusion keeps the Star alive due to the pure energy produced from this process.
[5/4/2020]
Continuing with the animation, I finished off the first half of the middle cycle explaining nuclear fusion; how it keeps the star alive, and nuclear fusion of hydrogen nucleus' to helium nucleus.
Animation [Gravitation Force vs Nuclear Fusion Energy]
I added this section in to make the information of the pure energy being generated through nuclear fusion more clear and to explain how that force is able to combat the force of gravity.
Animation [Nuclear Fusion Hydrogen to Helium]
As we had no one to voice over the animation, I decided to add in text in-between transitions to give an explanation of the process of the life cycle.
Plans for the following week:
- Finish the second half of the Animation [illustrating red supergiants and the supernova]
- Background sound for the documentary
[5/11/2020]
As we are focussing on sound this week to close up the documentary, Lewis found some sound effects that paired well with his scene; Nebula to a High mass star. Listening to the soundtracks that he experimented with, I decided to go with the selected three that can potentially be integrated in my scenes.
All three selected tracks are by David Fesliyan, whom composes music for mainly action movies and horror. The selected tracks are named "Warm Light", "Forever", and "New Heights". These sound tracks are able to convey the mystery vastness of the space, as well as auditory depict the weight of the high energy events such as Supernovas and Blackholes.
Animation [Red Supergiant & Supernova]
The second half took extremely long as there were a lot of additional animation to the storyboard that I changed in terms of scenes to make the presentation of the information visually appealing and interesting to look at.
Mainly at the part where I illustrate the core and the different element layer it has and the part where I used impact frames to illustrate and transition from the collapsing star to a supernova.
After finishing the scene, I combined both scenes and the total length of my section was 1 minute and 20 seconds. Although it is over the time limit, I believe it was justified with the easier animation. It would also be impractical to shorten or cut out information to fit within the time frame.
As the second half of my section took longer than expected due to changes along with additional texts and effects I have to add on, the final edit will be completed next week as the submission will be on the 20th.
Plans for the following week:
- Finish editing my section
[5/18/2020]
As animating took the prior week to complete, I edit my final section during the start of this week.
As Lewis provided a few song choices already, I chose the one that I want which is "New Heights" by David Fesliyan. I believe this background track sets a nice semi-mysterious and eerie tone to the space themed documentary. Moreover the track builds up nicely with the events of my section; from explaining the base essence of how a star stays alive to the pre-death sequence of it.
Animation [Supernova Final]
As the timing was a bit short for some of the text information, it was difficult to read. Therefore I had to adjust it during editing, adding a total 30 seconds to the final short of my section.
After editing my part, I decided to do the final edit for the documentary as well as it was just compiling Lewis and Ruari's final scenes to my section.
Finally, I added the credits to the documentary. To keep the space theme consistent throughout the documentary, I made the credits with a space background with the text scrolling into the background; similar to StarWars.
Animation [Final Documentary]
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