change of plans..

so i managed to upload my site fine enough.
but once it was up there i played around with it, and have decided to make some changes.
i have moved the links bar to the top of the screen and put the title of robert moran's e portfolio on all the pages.

so its pretty much done now.

http://scah.cdu.edu.au/2011/NMD201/s187606/rmoran_s187606_website/index.html

the upload

To upload the site to the cdu server, I am using cyberduck. I have had a few little issues with this because I didnt have an account in the right place or something.

i have copied it over, yet i end up with when i copy the url into firefox:

Not Found

The requested URL /var/www/scah/2011/NMD201/s187606/rmoran_s187606_website/index.html was not found on this server.

---

Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat) Server at scah.cdu.edu.au Port 80

But there is always a way around these things and I just need to save it in there at a different location or something

i placed all the pictures into a table to space them out with a small gap in between them. Its a pretty simple page, you just scroll down, looking at different drawings, then a little bit of text about them, then the links to the other pages.

videos

I also had a little trouble in trying to apply my videos to my website.
I decided to embed the videos in the site because I had already uploaded them to vimeo and like the way the player looked in the website. I also got to change the colour of the vimeo box to match the background of my site.
The trouble came when I wanted to put the embed into my table so that it would sit in the right place. for some reason unknown to me, I could not insert the embed code into the table. This got a tad annoying and decided i needed to pop out for some fresh air and a drink of water.
when i returned, I tried placing the code into my site, but not in the table. and it worked.
i could then just copy the box and place it into the table and it all worked out fine. I still don't know why it could not work the first time, but after finding this solution, i no longer felt i needed to worry about it.

after planning out how the site is gonna fit together and whats gonna be in it, it needs to be put together.


I chose a nice light blue (#cbf3ff) for the background of my pages because I like the colour and also makes the text very easy to read. For the titles of my page, I like the font bauhaus because it is bold
and i just really like the way it looks.

I found using dreamweaver challenging at times, not fully understanding the concept of css (cascading style sheets) and having much trouble formatting the site to get it to look the way that I wanted. But after battling it out, it eventually came out how i wanted it. My problem is that I was applying a particular set style to the way i formatted the headings, then when i wanted to write the filler text in arial, it would want to be in bauhaus and bold, then if i changed it, it would make the titles all like the body text. Through some frustration and a lot of back and forthing, I managed to get all the styles and allignments how I wanted them.


I found that I could space everything out how i wanted it when i put text and pictures into tables.

right e o then.
my e portfolio.
in class, we are making a webpage that can be used as an e portfolio. I wanted mine to be very simple and easy to navigate that can show a little bit of my work, a little bit about me and some contact details. I like things that are simple and easy to follow. I have decided to make the background of my website a pale colour with a bold black styled font for the title and helvetica for the text.

When designing my website, I drew out a map of how the website would be set out and what I wanted to put into it.

The general idea is that all the pages are linked to each other by a bar that will run across the bottom of the screen. The homepage will contain a photo of me and a little bit about me and the website.

The contact page will have a different photo of me along with my phone number, email address, facebook link to my profile and a link to my blog.

The video page will contain some videos that I have made in class and the pictures will contain photos of some drawings I have made.

i have made an animation in another class that i have uploaded to my vimeo account too.
in making this one, i took heaps of photos of a chalk drawing gradually being drawn on a wall. then put the photos into a piece of software called i stop. i made the soundtrack on garage band and made loops of me mumbling and added effects.
i put the film and sound together in final cut pro with a quick fade in and this is the result.....
http://vimeo.com/28495246

i uploaded my film onto vimeo

http://vimeo.com/28291608

i was also toying with the idea of splicing in some images of fish into the film and and make it a bit more psychadelic.
there was this footage of a fishtank

http://www.archive.org/details/My_Goldfish

http://www.archive.org/details/My_Goldfish_1

but i decided to keep it as footage of fireworks for my project.

using final cut pro, i used layered the footage of fireworks on top of each other, using cross fades to go between them, fading from cut up piece of footage to the other, i also used key frame effects to play one clip over the other with the black of the night set as transparent.
i tried to line up some of the explosions to go off at different points along the timeline to meet up with beats of the soundtrack.

for the visuals of this project, i used these creative commons licenced pieces on archive.org

http://www.archive.org/details/Fireworks_2

http://www.archive.org/details/Tels7ar-Fireworks547

http://www.archive.org/details/iriptanFireworksBonfireNightwmv

and this one from youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K7ScnKeNxU

so...
im gonna make this blog a bit retrospectively to finish off the stuff with the film and work done with final cut pro.
what i had decided to do was collect a few films of fireworks being let off and merge them together.
i managed to find a few good and appropriate pieces of footage that were creative commons licenced.
i also managed to find some background music using the site free music archive, which has heaps of creative commons music up for grabs. i found an electro artist called Lee Rosevere.
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/
i thought a lot of this artists songs would be good and appropriate for background music to the fireworks. i found a cool piece called 'dreaming of citiesit's. it is a soft, ambient piece with a few minimalist beats put through it.

first blog

hi there,

just starting my blog now and writing retrospectively for the last couple of weeks.

It was a bit of a slow start to the semester, not having proper computer access for the first 2 weeks, then missing week 3's class because it had been moved to a friday because of the Darwin cup.

This meant I had missed the first weekly assessment task. It was pretty hectic, but luckily there were some others in the class who were in the same boat and I was given an introduction to final cut pro in week 4.

Now it is catch up time.

Last week I learned to cut up videos and add in cross fades. I came across a few technical difficulties with rendering the video and sound, but have decided to cut sound of the videos out of my final presentation and create my own. Also there were some problems with the computer not being able to read video files that were on the network and needed to move them into the student workspace.

After some time playing around with final cut pro, it does not seem as difficult as it did at the start.

Today's assessment task is to get a video to break up into 9 pieces, using keynotes. I believe I will have to read over the handout from last week again, but I should be fine.

the end for now.....

:)