Trent's BCT Journal

'Purgamentum'

Of all the words I'd use to describe our final project, I'm willing to bet "arduous" and "frustrating" would be among the top contenders.

To start with, all of the people who made up our final group were in some kind of bad situation trying to find people to work with. At first it seemed like Brian and I were set to be in a group, along with Sam and possibly Jonathan. However, this was short-lived as one of our members had already taken off with another group by the next day. Similarly, Jonathan was forced to go with another group and I was left all by my little lonesome (I saw nothing of Brian for a long while). By this time, it was somewhat too late to force myself upon another group, so as soon as Brian turned up we got stuck in to the project. Eventually, we heard word of another member who would come in as soon as they could, Reuben.

With just myself and Brian, after tossing a few ideas around we came up with a good starting point - a large "f*** off" rig that one of us would wear, along with a hidden camera in a backpack or shopping trolley to capture people's reaction to the outrageous contraption we were wearing. Eventually, this evolved into a slightly different hidden camera scenario, in which the big rig was stationary, with a large camera and a sign saying something along the lines of "YOU ARE BEING FILMED AND STUFF". A small ways away from that, a small setup would be placed, likely a bin, with a hidden camera inside. We would then use this to observe the ~difference~ in behaviour between people who are aware they are on camera, and those who do not believe they are being filmed, hoping to see something along the lines of people 'showing off', or at least shying away. However, this did not meet all of the paper requirements, and though we had some leniency because of our group situation it was not quite enough to simply write off.

By this time, Reuben had come in, and Brian resumed his sporadic attendance. From this state, Reuben and I worked on a solution to our compliance problem, eventually taking the bin from the second concept and putting focus on developing it while omitting the big, eye-catching setup entirely. From this point onwards we would not be observing people, but their rubbish. We accomplished this by way of a webcam mounted under a cone that would deflect rubbish, with a clear plastic window on top so the camera could see out without being affected by refuse. In part, this fulfilled the psychological aspect of our first few ideas in that we were able to analyze the type of rubbish people were disposing of with respect to their appearance, location etc. More importantly, with the bin came an environmental aspect in which the purpose was to use the data we had gathered to better understand waste disposal methods. In turn, this would allow for a better infrastructure in waste management.

Once we had our idea down pat, I mocked up a concept in Blender to illustrate our entire setup, while Reuben worked on a Solidworks render of the piece to be fabricated.

The next step was visualizing the data, something we accomplished with some clever Max patching and Reuben's Macbook. Instead of simply capturing raw data, we set the webcam to begin recording when it detected motion. This eliminated the often long waiting periods between people putting rubbish into the bin, a complication which was not surprising at all (I mean, who's not a little suspicious of putting rubbish in a bin with a wire coming out of it and a trollface on the front?).

After some quick testing, at last we had our final product, working exactly as we intended it. The bin, along with our exhibition and a portfolio of previous projects, will be available for public viewing on Thursday 16 June, from 5:30.

Trent's BCT Journal, Entry Two

'The Three Little Pills'

Well, I have to say, this project was... Interesting.

Taking a radical departure from building and programming robots, this time we were asked to do film... With a twist. Instead of just simply making a film about whatever we fancied, we were to make an adaptation of a fairy tale. Of course, there had to be another twist, and we were put in groups based on the results of our last project in which we were each given a specific genre to make a film of.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) a few of us were stuck floating between groups, but after some awkward running around the final two of us came together to form a small group of our own. So far, it was myself and Jonathan (AKA The Swedish Box Man), whose idea from the start was to make a movie entirely in flash. Being a person who is quite familiar with and interested in Flash, I was on board from the start. However, we were told that two people was simply not enough and we had to either find someone else or split. By the next day, we had 'poached' a new member from another group - Conor. With our small size sorted, we continued to develop an idea, eventually settling on a black comedy adaptation of 'The Little Red Riding Hood'.

Our success was cut short, however, when we talked to one of the tutors and found out that we would not be able to do the movie entirely in Flash as it would omit much of the filmmaking process. We discussed various way around it, and settled on a 50/50 approach - half Flash, half live action. Many concepts for Red Riding Hood were created, but it was decided that it would be too hard to blend these two approaches with the fairy tale we had selected. After some discussion, we decided to use the Three Little Pigs as a basis instead, using fast food restaurants as analogues for the three pig's houses. Of course, we had to have some way of stopping the actor in the real world at the equivalent of the biggest and baddest house, which we solved by having the character run out of money at BurgerFuel (home of the biggest, baddest and most expensive burgers).

With the idea sorted, we laid down a simple script for the movie. Interestingly, we left the live-action script fairly open while the Flash script was quite strict. We did this in order to both make the Flash easier for Jonathan to do at home, and to provide contrast as Flash is a highly scripted, programmed form of video whereas film has much room for improvisation - something I, as the actor, did quite a lot of.

Filming was straightforward enough; aside from the complication of acquiring a burger without filming inside the premises of a restaurant, it went fairly smoothly... Even with the obligatory asshattery in between takes. Afterwards, Jonathan put in some late nights working on the Flash content and we were almost done.

The last touch was the soundtrack, which we used to better take advantage of the film's cartoonish nature. Along with old-style cartoon sound effects, we used a lively classical soundtrack. This was in part due to the fact that it made the film seem rather whimsical, and also because most music that old is free from copyright. Needless to say, Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' was a rather fitting compliment to my ecstasy upon smacking a large burger into my face.

Overall, I would say this project has been both the most stressful and most fun out of everything we have done this year. Due to the nature of the film we were able to have a fair few laughs, but it also highlighted the importance of time management and planning - something we (myself more than anyone) were somewhat lacking in - as well as helping us develop our skills in filmmaking. Still, even with our somewhat unorthodox approach to the video, it was well worth both the final product as well the skills and insight we gained from making it.