THANK GOODNESS!!!!

Last week we came in for an extra session in our Easter Break to get the majority of the Opus complete. Mandy kindly came in for the session to give us a hand. We got four tasks done and were really pleased with our progress although we know it is not the best as me and Kathy are not technically minded!!!!!
We both met up on Saturday to do an extra task and touch up the work. Due to work commitments we could not totally complete and put onto a disc.
Monday morning is here and gone and Kathy done an extra task for our programme as I had to work early. As soon as possible I have come in and got back on task with Kath and have done the disc and cover for the programme. We are now putting it onto a cd and have had to do it twice as we did not publish it properly.
Finally it is complete and I feel a huge weight off my shoulder!!! I think our programme will be benifical to children and is fun and also informal learning. I have found this assignment quite difficult and time consuming but nevertheless interested in using Opus.

I hope you enjoy our programme!!!

Thank you and see you at graduation!!!!!

Session 3 ICT

Today we played around with our voices in class!!! We used microphones to record our voice and then editied to change the pitch, tempo etc. To then adapt it to our Opus programme, Kathy and I recorded words and the title to our programme. I recorded the title and we put an autonarrate so the words change colour as the computer speaks. It looks abit like a kareoke!! We then used Kathys voice to go over the buttons. When applying the voice to each button we had to apply it to every button on every page. We also had to make sure that the voice stopped when the mouse left the button. I found this very time-consuming and have really concentrated hard not to make any mistakes!!!! We have also been planning what activites we are going to do in the programme. We have been told we need at least 6!!!!!!!

OOF!! Off to rest my tired head!!!!!

CU NX WK!!!!

Session 2

Hello!!

Today we played around and experimented with the Opus programme and made a small wordsearch. It is not yet in our programme but it was interesting to try and use. Me and Kathy could not fiind the work we done last week so started a fresh today!!!!! We are finding it a little difficult as not very technical but we enjoy a challenge so are willing to give it our best shot!!!!

CU SWN!

OPUS LESSON 1

So, the end of one assignment with Suzi and our D and T project and the start of the Opus project with Mandy. Kathy is my new partner for this challenge and today we had the opportunity to start playing with the Opus programme. It is slightly confusing to use but we have actually managed to get a theme and a few pictures in. We have decided on the topic 'Healthy Living' and have made four buttons, food, excersize, lifestlye and why to keep healthy. We are hoping our programme will encourage youngsters to become and stay healthy. We will toch on the consequences that will happen if you dont keep healthy too. Today we uploaded photos of real foods ready for a game that we will work on next week. This first lesson was to get us use to the programme and to get some ideas rolling and we have!!! CU NX WK!! X!

The End! - Stop, Start Animation

So today was the day we presented our short stop animation film to the class. I really enjoyed watching what the rest of the class had produced and we all had a good laugh!! Everyone had different messages to send through thier animation and I believe our film had a related issue to young people like ourselves. We had good feedback and everyone enjoyed.

If we had to go this presentation again, we would firstly make a front cover to introduce our film. We had trouble adding this feature on at a later date so would do it immediately. Also the way we filmed our animation was not the easieset. There is better way to record the animation by using a button on the programme. Louise and I used the actual camera and then had to shorten each scene which proved time consuming.

Overall I am really happy with the way our animation turned out. We had fun making, filming, editing and presenting our animation and believe the message got across to our audience as we recieved positive feedback! Of course I would like to make improvements but am very happy with the final result.

Finishing Touches......

So today, me and Louise just touched up our storyboard. We added sound effects to our motion and a few speacial effects, for instance a disco ball to give the theme in the disco and some flames for when the car crashes. We have struggles with the sounds a bit because we couldn't change the music totally when the scene changed to the outdoors. This hasnt really affected the overall film and we did manage to put some explosion sounds on.
We are very happy with our production and might change our career to animation design film makers!!!!

BYE 4 NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!"!

So, Louise and I have come in last week on our reading week (04/02/2010) to get our film started!! We prepared out scences and got the camera in place. We then had to set our 'doll' dancing through different stages. We made sure we had plenty of clips to play around with. We also added in some extra moves, such as drinking cans and throwing them and her falling a being sick!! It really gives a good impression of a night out! The girl, who we have named - Britney, then goes out to her car and climbs through the window, again she spews! As she drives off she hits a tree and before filming our final scene we had to go over the film as we needed to cause some damage to the car and tree in the scene itself. We have added in small fonts to get the message across but are going to expand on this next week and add some background sounds!!