Ethics

The main areas of ethical boundaries lie within;

- What is socially acceptable, meaning how far can we alter an image until we see it as wrong

- Copyright boundaries, meaning the limitations to what we can use as sources, etc.

For copyright there are limits to what an individual or group of people can use, and this falls under creative commons and their licencing terms, which are;

- Attribution -"This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials."

- Attribution no derivatives - "This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you."

- Attribution non commercial - share a like "This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms."

- Attribution share-alike - "This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects."

- Attribution non commercial - "This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms."

- Attribution non commercial no derivatives - "This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially."

Quotes taken from - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Although i would have to use specifically licenced works, i do not need to pick and choose, because i am a student and this falls under academic work so copyright law does not apply.

Week 12 - DVD label finished

This is the finished version of the DVD label

Overall, i find that the DVD label is by far the best part of the overall project, i feel that it reflects the Gears of war franchise perfectly, although there are a few downsides, such as;

- The xbox 360 segment to the disc looks sloppy, although i considered removing this section completely, just like i did with the DVD inlay, although i thought that the disc would look bare with it removed, so i kept it on

- The blood veins coming out of the Omen, i feel like i was on the right track but i went the wrong way with it, maybe if i had applied the same effects as i did with the Omen, it would have looked much better

- The font for the "Gears of war Emergence", this had totally slipped past me and i hadn't realised until too late that the font hadn't been changed, although it doesn't make a major difference i feel that it is slightly unfinished


Positive points;

- The template was implemented perfectly, and all ideas i had come up with in my head has been successfully transferred to the project

- The clipping masks work as i expected them to

- The omen itself is to my standards, perfect, mainly because of the applied effects such as the brush tool, and the additional photoshop added effects

- The postitioning of all of the objects are perfect and really reflect the franchise and its previous games


Techniques used;

- Clipping masks for the overall circlular shape of the disc, this was to keep any spill from the edges going into the white area which would be cut when printed, also a clipping mask was used for the BBFC logo for the same reasons

- Pen tool, this was used to create the catstick games logo, i felt that this tool did the job perfectly

- Transparencies, i used a transparent circle in which i used an inner text wrap to create the legal info on the disc

- Brush tool, i applied effects to the brush itself and added the effect over the omen, to give the effect of scratches, and again for the veins coming out from the omen (explained previously)


What i would do next time;

- Do more research into techniques, although the gears of war franchise disc art is more minimalist than fully worked on, i would look into learning how to make my own omen and apply effects

Week 12 - finished trailer

The finished version of the trailer is overall to a decent standard, overall i find that it is satisfactory.

The reasons why the video wasn't as good as it should have been;

- Certain transitions could have been explored more, meaning that i used to dip-to-black feature far too much and should have explored other techniques, for a more varied trailer to contrast different skills

- Around the 15th second there is a slight glitch in which it flashed an image, I had found no solution for this because i had tried to remake the clip but had some errors

- Around the 18-19th second the clip itself is too bright and the focus is taken away from the main point, next time i will change this and prevent it from happening

- Around the 47-54th second the clips transitions occur too fast, meaning that the effect of suspense isn't as prominent as if i would have made the transitions slightly further apart and slower, meaning the dip to black should have lasted longer

- Not enough variations in sound, there is only a backing track and one sound effect, although it is sufficient i feel that the trailer is not as good as it should've been mainly for this reason, next time i would add in sound effects of explosions and gun shots

- The ending, the ending is very sudden and i should have had it fade to black, the reason for this is that it transitions out peacefully to correspond with the music


Although the video has its bad points, there are some good points, such as;

- The transitions, although generic are smooth throughout the video and very little errors made

- Around the 20th second the clip effects really bring out the red in the scene and really keep the attention of the viewer

- The suitability of the music to the video, I find that the backing music goes well with the overall video, because of its depressing overtones


What i would do differently next time;

- Put more time into the trailer rather than focusing on the images, this is because i focused more on completing the photoshop and illustrator tasks because they are more challenging, meaning that less time was spent on premiere

- More sound effects, this is because the trailer itself is satisfactory, i think that with more sounds effects that the trailer will be more active and come to life

- More effects, i mainly used the dip-to-black, although it works well, i feel that there is room for improvement in this area, and if there was a next time i would definately pay more attention to effects