Multimedia Competitions

During last weeks tutorial, Deborah, asked us to look into Multimedia related competitions. Having trawled in the internet I managed to find the following;

Adobe Design Achievement Awards

http://www.adobe.com/education/adaa/

The entries for 2009 have now passed, however, I expect there to be another held for 2010.
This competition is aimed at creative students who have implemented their creativity into current technology, or more specifically, Adobe products. The link below contains the official rules to the competition and if you click the catagory links on the right-hand-side of the page, it will indentifiy the individual specificaiton for that catagory.

http://adaaentry.com/official-rules.php


Photoshop User Awards

This competition is open to any photoshop user, at any skill level, and requires them to produce a piece of work for a catagory of their choice. This particular competition requires the entrants to pay a relatively nominal submission fee. The prizes range depending on catagory and overall winner. I'd considering entering this kind of competition in the future if I brushed up my skills with photoshop.

http://www.photoshopuserawards.com/categories.php

The previous years winners pieces can be found here:

http://www.photoshopuserawards.com/winners.php

Image Manipulation - Misc.

The images are below are a few other pieces produced. With no real theme, nor purpose.

A friend and Myself

Fruit/Vegetable skinned cars! The future!

Use of combining a Mercedes Benz MClaren with an Orange.

Photoshop: Image Manipulation - Use of Fire!

These images were manipulated by Myself. Again, influenced by another photoshop user, the initial idea was enough to get the images going, but in the later stages a lot of changed to give, what I believe, a better looking image.

Before and After

These images were manipulated by Myself. Again, influenced by another photoshop user, the initial idea was enough to get the images going, but in the later stages a lot of changed to give, what I believe, a better looking image.

Before and after

Very simple technique and be used with many different elements. Also the early layering allows for the foundations of other types of images.

Photoshop: Image Manipulation - Cult Theme

For the past year or so I have been playing around with photoshop and manipulating images. Over time I've slowly become more advanced with the software. The images below were influenced by an online tutorial I found over the internet, although all were created by myself, the original idea and some of the techniques used were from another photoshop users tutorial.





It would have been unfair, having transformed my friends into corpses, if I hadn't done on of Myself!

Introduction Task: Pinhole Camera

The following explanation is taken from Wikipedia;

“A pinhole camera is a very simple camera with no lens and a single very small aperture. Simply explained, it is a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. Cameras using small apertures and the human eye in bright light both act like a pinhole camera.

The smaller the hole, the sharper the image but the dimmer the projected image. Optimally, the size of the aperture should be 1/100 or less of the distance between it and the screen.

A pinhole camera's shutter is usually manually operated because of the lengthy exposure times, and consists of a flap of some light-proof material to cover and uncover the pinhole. Typical exposures range from 5 seconds to hours and sometimes days.

A common use of the pinhole camera is to capture the movement of the sun over a long period of time. This type of photography is called Solargraphy.

The image may be projected onto a translucent screen for real-time viewing (popular for observing solar eclipses; see also camera obscura), or can expose film or a charge coupled device (CCD). Pinhole cameras with CCDs are often used for surveillance because they are difficult to detect.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_camera

Our pinhole camera consisted of an empty beer ‘can’ (or Energy drink, any 440ml ‘can’ or larger) with the top removed and replaced with cap (made from card), with a hole the diameter of a pin in the centre of the ‘can’. The idea being that, the ‘can’ was still accessible from the top, but at the same time being completely light-proof. We then proceeded into the dark room to put our undeveloped film into the ‘can’. This is because if the light hits the undeveloped film, then the film will go black, if left long enough.

With the film in position in the ‘can’, we went out into the world to find something worthy of our one shot camera. Taking the photo was just a case of removing the tape from the pin hole for about 10 seconds to allow the light to stream in and begin to hit the film. The tape then goes back on the ‘can’ and the film is then ready to be developed in the dark room.

After the film is developed and dry, it was just a case of scanning the photo onto the computer and inverting the colours, as a developed photo shows light colours as dark and vice-versa.

Admittedly, I found the whiteboard animation task a lot more enjoyable; however, I did find the theory behind how the pinhole photo-capture technique very interesting. This method is quite abstract and makes for some interesting photos so hopefully I’ll be able to incorporate this into possibly future work.

Below is a screenshot of my final developed and inverted photo. It was taken in the graveyard just across the road from the Waverly building. You can make out the trees but the gravestones seem to have blended in with the surrounding landscape.

(Click to Enlarge)

Introduction Task: Whiteboard Animation

‘Whiteboard Animation’ is simply drawing a series of images on a whiteboard and then taking a still-frame photo of the whiteboard. The image is then altered slightly, and the process is repeated over and over till you’re happy with the outcome of the animation. Each animation was meant to last around 10 seconds, consisting of around 120 still images. This meant each individual image would only be displayed for approximately 0.083 of a second.

The task itself was to get an object (box-shaped) from one side of an object (house-shaped) to the other. Initially it was decided, within the group, to just keep it simple and have a stick figure come from inside the house, pick up the box, take it back through the house, and place it down the other side of the house. This idea was soon forgotten. By the end of the two hours only the box-shaped object had survived the onslaught of our board-marker madness. What had started out as such a simple idea had quickly changed into a short animation with giant meteors, destructive ‘house-swallowing’ earthquake, and flying blob-shaped super heroes.

This form of animation is very simple, relatively easy and so much fun to use. Although longer, more detailed animations would take a great deal longer to do, the final result looks worth it. Our groups’ animation was only 60 images long, which was, when put together, only be around 5 seconds long. Overall I enjoyed myself doing this task and will definitely trying it again in the future!