Spanner in the works!

So 25th October I was all for punching the computer after my 3 hour stint of re-doing the Gantt charts for myself and the group, after the initial one became corrupt, these latest versions again became corrupt!

We cannot identify the reason and it has flummoxed two IT gurus.  Needless to say, I was frustrated, nay furious.

The following morning I was at the midwife's for my check up and blood pressure had shot up, not surprising after how annoyed I was the previous night.

I had to return to keep and eye on things and again on the Friday, blood pressure was high, but all in all I was feeling better than I had done in weeks.  Fast forward through a 2 hour Tesco shop and a 2 hour Ikea trip to buy wardrobes, I spent the night rubbing my aching bum and back whilst devouring a 12 inch Pizza.... all of it.  With hindsight I should have seen what was coming.

Unknowingly in labour! Horizontal in the car to accommodate the wardrobes!

I'll spare you the gory details, by the following lunchtime our baby boy had made his debut, Ayrton James Bernard Peter 'The Bear'.

Following 16 days in special care, our boy came home with us and we are still adjusting.

I'm sure Becky will fill you in on her exciting fly in the ointment, in short she has had investigative surgery on her ankle and was also rendered out of service.

Becky and I returned to uni in the New Year to find that the rest of the tutorial group have been granted an extension.  Obviously we also require additional time to complete this assignment, Allison is applying to Leeds for an exemption, hopefully for an Easter submission date.

This week we had a production meeting and agreed that we should streamline our project as we are also starting a new assignment next week, it will be near impossible to complete everything we had originally planned to do.

We went through my production log and marked off what was complete, what we needed to do in the immediate future and what tasks we would shelve.  It is hard to set dates at the moment as we have not had confirmation from Leeds of our final deadline date so the dates we chose may need to change.

This week's main tasks are to collate all the resources that we need to build the working presentation, jpegs and sound files. 

Minutes - October 11, 2011

Meeting points

^1.             Agreed allocations of designs to be completed in Illustrator/ Photoshop as .PNG or .JPEG format  by 18/10

a.     CWH

                                                                    i.         3D Flash gun

                                                                  ii.         3D lens

                                                                 iii.         3D waterproof housing

                                                                 iv.         3D battery

                                                                   v.         3D flash/ memory card

                                                                 vi.         Points display screen

                                                                vii.         School shop – the location and the thumbnail for Polaroid

                                                              viii.         Sketches for details in the Countryside and the Beach

                                                                 ix.         Produce the colour schemes as per list below.
                                 x.     Complete the design for the countryside.

b.     BS

                                                                    i.         Mountain scene – Flash game

                                                                  ii.         Design frame style for menu – instruction page & intro page

                                                                 iii.         Complete Polaroid design – the location indicator

                                                                 iv.         Design game logo

                                                                   v.         Complete Map

                                                                 vi.         School – the location and the thumbnail for Polaroid

                                                                vii.         Complete Shipwreck

                                                              viii.         Sketch and produce static version of the animation ‘winning’ sequence.

                                                                 ix.         Sketches for details in the Mountains/ Castle and Shipwreck

                                                                   x.         Footprints

2.     Assigned other items to do for next week

a.     CWH –

                                                                    i.         Type minutes

                                                                  ii.         Email Game template and Under the Sea layers to BS for her Shipwreck

                                                                 iii.         Update the group GANTT chart (all actions done and new projections – see below)

                                                                 iv.         Try and recover the corrupt version of self GANTT chart and update

                                                                   v.         Update Production Diary

b.     BS –

                                                                    i.         Email Group GANTT chart to CWH

                                                                  ii.         Test photography games

                                                                 iii.         Update self GANTT chart

                                                                 iv.         Update Production Diary

3.     Set new deadlines and tasks – to input into GANTT

a.     Practice presentation and demonstration of working product – 01/11

b.     Produce diagrams of percentage completed of work (from GANTT) – 01/11

c.     Write evaluation of team’s performance so far – 25/10

d.     Evaluation of the product as it stands – 25/10

e.     Write each team member’s individual contribution to the project – 01/11

f.      Plan the build schedule – 18/10

g.     Start the build – 18/10

Other items discussed

4.     Portraits for the website – CWH 18/10

5.     Music and sound for the game – to be planned into the build schedule – 18/10

6.     Post production areas – these although wonderful ideas are a big ask for us in terms of our present abilities and the time constraints.  We agreed to bump this to ‘Version 2’ this would be a development opportunity for a next generation of Snaps Academy.

7.     Delivery material – we cannot really start the design of this until we have a brand/ logo and contents – we will start this after our next deadline - 08/11 onwards.

8.     The ‘winning’ animation can for the most recent deadline, be static or animatic – it is for demonstration purposes only.  The final animation can be started after our presentation - 08/10

9.     Although BS is designing the winning sequence, we have not yet agreed the build schedule.

10.  Iain is happy for us to chose whether to submit the time plan (Gantt), minutes and production diary in our chosen format.  He is happy for the production diary to be the blog so long as it was obvious which submissions were who’s.  We decided that we would have a projection of this, with maybe one hard copy of each incase someone wants to flick through a copy.  This hard copy would simply be a print out of the blog and Gantt chart, bound. No fancy, time consuming, designs!

11.  Iain said we do not need to simplify the Gantt chart, the more detail the better!
12. CWH's bloody bastard Gantt chart has become corrupt since it was produced last week so couldn't update this evening!  IT chappie will look into it for me.  BS has the group Gantt chart on her pen drive but didn't have it with her so will need to update next week.  

13.  Colour schemes – we looked at the 3 schemes suggested based on ‘Island’ looked at ‘Photograph’ and ‘School’ – CWH will be producing the colour scheme charts to make decision next week.

·       Photograph

a.     Across the Sea

b.     Golden Gate Bridge

c.     Stop photographing me

d.     Photograph (by awakening)

e.     Old C print – too girly

f.      Acid Handbags – too girly

g.     Scrapbook

h.     Lost Photograph – too manly, too muted

·       School

a.     Old school bag

b.     Primary School – too pastely

c.     School colours

Assessment - Contextual Research

Contextual Research  (Tuesday 08/11/2011)

By 9pm on the day of your Working Product Presentation, you are required to submit your individual Contextual Research. This document should contain the following:

·        The aim of your research

·        Your methodologies

·        A literature review

·        Results/conclusions

·        Bibliography

Your research should be no more than 2000 words in length. Please note that your research can be visual/graphical as appropriate! Feel free to include images, diagrams, drawings, annotated screen-grabs and other form of visual research.

This individual Contextual Research will award 30 marks.

Assessment - Working Product Presentation

Working Product Presentation (Tuesday 08/11/2011)

On Tuesday 08 November between 6pm and 9pm, you are required to deliver a Working Product presentation. This presentation is your opportunity to showcase your achievements so far. The product does not have to be finished but aspects of it should be fully functional.

A panel of academics (acting as the clients for the project) will attempt to recreate a commercial presentation scenario and will therefore expect you to present professionally.

You should imagine that the panel has made a financial investment in your project and is therefore expecting to be impressed and re-assured with the quality of your work and the professionalism of your team.

The presentation must include:

·        An introduction to the project; its key selling points, purpose and delivery

·        Examples of your best work (covering all aspects of the project)

·        A demonstration of the product (including fully functional aspects)

·        Diagrams/charts showing the percentage-completed for each part of the project

·        The presentation of an up-to-date time plan & minutes of meetings (with actions)

·        An evaluation of the team’s performance so far

·        An evaluation of the product (as it stands)

·        The presentation and technical explanation of each team member’s individual contribution to the production of the project

·        The presentation of each team member’s production diary

The length of your presentation is determined by your team size, as follows:

·        2 team members: 15 minutes

Failure to present at this work-in-progress presentation and upload your Contextual Research will result in the loss of 100 MARKS. (Please refer to the marking scheme below)

schedule for next week's meeting

Items to discuss:

Agree on the following allocations - 

1. mountain scene – Castle ‘flash game’ – night - BS
2. flash gun 3D model – CWH
3. lens 3D model - CWH
4. waterproof housing 3D model - CWH
5. battery 3D model - CWH
6. flash card 3D model - CWH
7. sketches for details in games e.g. Trees, birds, fish, flowers, sandcastles, shells - do these move?
8. design/frame for menu, intro and links etc
9. portraits for website - CWH
10. update Gantt chart 
11. Music and sounds for the game!!!!!
12. Logo for game
13. Map – BS
14. Points display design – CWH
15. School shop, location & thumbnail – CWH
16. School, location & thumbnail – BS
17. Post production areas – interface & games (colour in, adjust saturation, contrast etc) & thumbnail – BS
18. Delivery material – CWH
19. Winning sequence animation – BS (balloons)
20. Intro animation – when/who will build
21. How many points are awarded for each game?
22. How much do the pieces of equipment cost?
23. If the above is too complicated, do we just go straight to the shop and award with one item from the shop? Is it a pre-determined piece? Does the player chose?

Becky’s CV

2005- Present                     Sunlight Textile Services

• -        Manage 585 accounts from everyday queries to invoice queries
• -        Supervise the service office
• -        Manage key account (Tesco) for the Ashton Site

2009- Present                     HolyCross College

• -        Adobe Photoshop:           Fantasy Poster, Visual Communications Assignment, Technology in Context Assignment , Web Page Design, Progression Project
• -        Adobe Illustrator:             Visual Communications Assignment, Progression Project
• -        Adobe Premiere Pro:      Video Assignment, Trailer Assignment
• -        Adobe Flash:                        Authoring Assignment
• -        Google Sketch Up:            3D Assignment  

Job Spec - Becky

Becky is responsible for the Product Design and formulating creative ideas in order to fulfil the needs of the client.

Becky is involved in the development of graphic design and advertising, including company branding. She is also heavily involved in the conceptualization and design of the graphic applications.

As the Creative Director she will head the creative department involved in carrying out the creative activities right from developing the concept and covering the production aspects. She will tune up all the involved philosophy of the creativity that is required for developing a product.

She has to find ways and means to bring the identity of the company publicized, as well as processing the necessities of the client and pitching design.

Group GANTT chart

Here are the dates for the group GANTT chart, these have part been from what we initially planned and subsequently actioned for the Pitch Document.

I have then taken all the items required from the other elements of the assignments and broken them down into tasks with deadlines.

Group
Tutorial Date		Action		Due Date		Actioned
05/07/2011		Received assignment		n/a		05/07/2011
05/07/2011		Chose Company Name		n/a		05/07/2011
05/07/2011		Started Brand Development		n/a		05/07/2011
05/07/2011		Agreed on product and type of games within it		n/a		05/07/2011
12/07/2011		Meeting		n/a		12/07/2011
12/07/2011		GANTT chart tutorial		n/a		12/07/2011
12/07/2011		read brief & noted key dates to create action plan for GANTT chart		n/a		12/07/2011
19/07/2011		Agree on logo		19/07/2011		20/07/2011
19/07/2011		Agreed blog would be digital note/scrap book.  This could be an online diary/tracker.		n/a		19/07/2011
19/07/2011		Agreed website will be online portfolio/ showcase for or work		n/a		19/07/2011
19/07/2011		To sketch character ideas		27/07/2011
27/07/2011		No tutorial and we were unable to meet over summer due to holidays so we worked independantly keeping in touch via the blog		n/a		n/a
06/09/2011		Meeting at the Waterside Farm - catch up on work done over summer		06/10/2011		06/10/2011
06/09/2011		Brainstorm name ideas		13/09/2011
06/09/2011		Re-visit pitch requirements		06/09/2011		06/09/2011
06/09/2011		Agree on draft overview, key selling points, delivery method		06/09/2011		06/09/2011
06/09/2011		A skills audit, job specification & CV (for each team member)		29/09/2011
06/09/2011		Design and conceptual work that clearly illustrates how the product will look and function		29/09/2011
06/09/2011		photograph portraits for website (postponed as BS glasses are in for repair)		29/09/2011
06/09/2011		Collate all dates, individual and group of actions for Gantt Chart (for all team members, for the whole project)		29/09/2011
06/09/2011		Agreed on deadlines for group tasks required for submissions		06/09/2011		06/09/2011
06/09/2011		Illustrate how the product will function and look
06/09/2011		Print out images for Design and Conceptual work		13/09/2011
06/09/2011		Sound, Animation, activity page for the children to collect and colour their own photos collected while exploring. Discussed.		n/a		n/a
13/09/2011		Meeting cancelled - unforseen circumstances - next available date is 27/09		n/a		n/a
27/09/2011		Agree on name		04/10/2011
27/09/2011		Complete pitch document		03/10/2011
03/10/2011		Hand in Pitch Document		04/10/2011
03/10/2011		Plan the requirements for the Working Product Presentation		04/10/2011
03/10/2011		Start Production diary each		01/11/2011
03/10/2011		Assign all designs to members - for all games, 3D elements, Map, Points Display, School Shop, School, Post Prod areas (gallery & colouring), Intro animation - B&P logo, game logo, Island. Delivery Material - check if any more are needed?!		04/10/2011
04/10/2011		Write introduction to project; key selling points, purpose & delivery		05/10/2011
04/10/2011		Draft design for delivery material - CD package & label, Memory Stick casing and packaging. As well as any additional material that is included with it e.g. booklet.		11/10/2011
04/10/2011		Complete all designs - for all games, 3D elements, Map, Points Display, School Shop, School, Post Prod areas (gallery & colouring), Intro animation - B&P logo, game logo, Island		25/10/2011
04/10/2011		Start the animating/ authoring of the functions - this is ongoing but a draft version must be completed and tested by - 01/11		01/11/2011
04/10/2011		Plan individual tasks required for the next two elements and update individual GANTT charts accordingly		11/10/2011
04/10/2011		Re-visit the introduction - has anything changed?		25/10/2011
04/10/2011		Produce visuals/ handouts for all minuits & GANTT chart		25/10/2011
04/10/2011		Write presentation & technical explaination of each member's individual contribution		25/10/2011
04/10/2011		Write evaluation of team's performance as it stands		25/10/2011
04/10/2011		Write evaluation of product as it stands		25/10/2011
04/10/2011		Complete all elements of the Contextual Research Document		01/11/2011
04/10/2011		Submission - Contextual Research		08/11/2011
04/10/2011		Have all elements of working product presentation completed and written by this date and practice the presentation		01/11/2011
04/10/2011		Presentation - Working Product - 15 mins		08/11/2011
04/10/2011		Print the packaging for the product		13/12/2011
04/10/2011		Have all elements of the final presentation completed and written by this date and practice the presentation		13/12/2011
04/10/2011		Presentation - Final		20/12/2011