Reflections on the Photography and Storyboard performance tasks...

Do give a short statement on ONE key reflection or learning point that you had while doing the storyboarding assignment. Include your reflection in the 'Comments' section of this post.

Comments on your classmates' storyboards...

Please use the 'Comments' section in this blog post to comment on your classmates' presentation and presentation boards.

Using Photography to tell a story

In this exercise, you would be pairing up with another classmate to do up a storyboard-cum-comic strip that would enable you to communicate your intended idea or messaging to a general audience. These are the activities that you would need to do:

1. Develop a story idea for your comic strip. Just write down, in 1 paragraph, the basic idea of your story. Be mindful of the theme that you and your classmate have in mind, as it must also be appropriate to the toys that you have brought to class. Some examples of universal themes that you might want to consider are LOVE, INNOVATION and TRAGEDY.
2. By dividing each of your sketchbook page into 4 separate boxes, produce a storyboard of between 4 to 8 scenes (boxes) that would help you to tell your story. Take note of the types of shots that you and your classmate would be taking. I will explain concepts like CLOSE-UP SHOTS, MID-SHOTS, LONG SHOTS and PANORAMIC SHOTS during my class. I will also explain concepts like
3. Once I have approved your story, you can start to take your pictures of your scenes. With thorough planning, you should be able to finish this part in 30 to 40 minutes
4. Using the Storyboard template in Pages, work on developing and including your selected relevant pictures to tell your story. You might want to edit the pictures in iPhoto or/and Picasa first, before putting them in into your storyboards! You might also want to include Title Scene, Concluding Scene, Dialogue Bubbles and Story Boxes in your storyboards to help you tell your story, just like I did for my Zoo Story comic strip
5. For submission, you and your classmate will need to submit these:
• The Pages storyboard document. Below is a sample picture of what you need to fill up in the template (the first 2 scenes/shots have been done for you as reference). Please rename your file as: 107_Storyboard-TanAhSeng+LimAhLeng.pages
• Pass ONLY your selected pictures to me so that I may upload them later for you
6. Deadline: By next Tuesday, 8th March 2011

Sample storyboard (incomplete); the first 2 scenes/shots have been done as reference

Environmental Challenge: Developing Essential & Guiding Questions

As a team, continue working on your Environment Journal to complete the following tasks:

1. List about 3 or more questions that your team have deemed to be important that needs to be uncovered, based on your previous works on your concepts maps and research
2. Rank these questions, and identify the ONE Essential Question that your team would like to highlight as a good challenge to uncover in your research. The notes at the bottom of this blog post are some guides to what is defined as an Essential Question (EQ).
3. From the selected EQ, work on developing a few (3 to 6) Guiding Questions (GQ) that would help you in your research further.

I would explain further on the work required in class later.

Notes on EQ:

(taken from: http://www.authenticeducation.org/bigideas/article.lasso?artId=53)

A question is essential when it: 

1. causes genuine and relevant inquiry into the big ideas and core content;
2. provokes deep thought, lively discussion, sustained inquiry, and new understanding as well as more questions;
3. requires students to consider alternatives, weigh evidence, support their ideas, and justify their answers;
4. stimulates vital, on-going rethinking of big ideas, assumptions, and prior lessons;
5. sparks meaningful connections with prior learning and personal experiences;
6. naturally recurs, creating opportunities for transfer to other situations and subjects.

Picasa Getting Started Guide...

For your download...Picasa:

Basic Photography: Lesson 2-The Rule of Thirds

The ancient Greeks are amongst the first to realise the more pleasant effects that a visual presentation using the rule of thirds would present. Hence most of their works of art uses this rule in its visual presentation. In fact the rule of thirds are amongst the first few rules that are taught in basic photography classes.

The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 parts. As follows.

As you’re taking an image you would have done this in your mind through your viewfinder or in the LCD display that you use to frame your shot. With this grid in mind the ‘rule of thirds’ now identifies four important parts of the image that you should consider placing points of interest in as you frame your image. Not only this – but it also gives you four ‘lines’ that are also useful positions for elements in your photo.

The theory is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally. Studies have shown that when viewing images that people’s eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the center of the shot – using the rule of thirds works with this natural way of viewing an image rather than working against it.

Some examples of such photos are presented below:

 

In learning how to use the rule of thirds (and then to break it) the most important questions to be asking of yourself are:

• What are the points of interest in this shot?
• Where am I intentionally placing them?

Once again – remember that breaking the rule can result in some striking shots – so once you’ve learnt it experiment with purposely breaking it to see what you discover.

Adapted from: http://digital-photography-school.com/rule-of-thirds

Basic Photography: Lesson 1-Knowing your focal point

It is important in basic photography for you to be able to know what are the focal points of the photos that you are taking. Are you taking a single subject matter or a group of people engaging in a certain activity? The reason why a focal point is important is to allow your viewers to maintain their focus on the intended subject matter. Hopefully the ideas and messages that you would want to show, highlight or put across in the photos would be put forth across successfully.

For example, compare the 2 pictures below:

 Picture 1

Picture 2

Which of these pictures would show more clearly the idea of students being engaged in an IT-based activity?

 6 Techniques to Enhance the Focal Point in an Image

A focal point can be virtually anything ranging from a person, to a building, to a mountain, to a flower etc. Obviously the more interesting the focal point the better – but there are other things you can do to enhance it’s power including:

• Position – Place it in a prominent position – you might want to start with the rule of thirds for some ideas.
• Focus – Learn to vary your depth of field to blur out other aspects in front or behind your focal point.
• Blur – If you really want to get tricky you might want to play with slower shutter speeds if your main subject is still and things around it are moving.
• Size – making your focal point large is not the only way to make it prominent – but it definitely can help.
• Color – using contrasting colors can also be a way of setting your point of interest apart from it’s surroundings.
• Shape – similarly contrasting shapes and textures can make a subject stand out – especially patterns that are repeated around a subject.

Keep in mind that a combination of above elements can work well together.
Lastly – don’t confuse the viewer with too many competing focal points which might overwhelm the main focal point. Secondary points of interest can be helpful to lead the eye but too many strong ones will just clutter and confuse.

Adapted from: http://digital-photography-school.com/using-focal-points-in-photography

Sketchworks 8...with Playdoh!

Some of the potential problems that most students would have are in the areas of visualisation of their proposed ideas. For today's lesson, what we are going to do is to leverage on the flexibility of Playdoh for ideation and visualisation.

Design Challenge 4:
For your first challenge, you are tasked to design a door-wedge or stopper that is going to be used for a toddler or for a child up to the age of 6 years of age. The design should fulfill the following considerations:

• Use only a SINGLE colour material
• Should not have sharp corners
• Is secure when placed as a door stopper, meaning that it cannot be removed easily without adult supervision
• Must have an interesting theme relevant to their age group, i.e. favourite cartoons, shows, fairy tales, etc

Use the Playdoh to create a model of your intended design or designs, and sketch it out on your sketchbooks. Take a picture of BOTH your models and sketches and upload them in your ADMT personal blog, putting in the URL in the 'Comments' section of this post.

Design Challenge 5:
One of the main problem that one faces when charging a few electrical appliance at one go is the mess created by all the cables from a single power point. A possible scenario would look something like the picture shown below:

Take from: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3079/2391255651_b543422e66.jpg

For your second challenge, you would need to design a phone charger set or unit that would allow one to use it without the hassle and mess of having the wires and cables being all over the place. Your proposed designs should fulfill the following considerations:

• Able to hold and secure a maximum of 2 phones concurrently
• Able to be secure the charging cables neatly and safely
• Can be used for most power-points in Singapore (either 3-pin or 2-pin plugs)
• No sharp corners and easy to be used by the target group
• Target group is anybody who has a mobile phone

Use the Playdoh to create a model of your intended design or designs, and sketch it out on your sketchbooks. Take a picture of BOTH your models and sketches and upload them in your ADMT personal blog, putting in the URL in the 'Comments' section of this post.
 

One Shot@Fame

Inviting all students who are interested in photography, don't really matter whether you are a beginner or someone who have been taking photos the last few years of your school life. Here's an opportunity for you to showcase your talents in the Canon Singapore Photography competition! I hope that some of you would be taking part in this after the initial photography lessons that I would be conducting from week 8 onwards.

http://www.canon.com.sg/eosacademy/schoolchallenge/

Week 7: Sketchworks 7...Design Challenge 3

Design Challenge 3...

Picture taken from: http://www.weaverairproducts.com

Current Situation: The above picture shows the typical wall fan that is used mostly in classrooms or office environments. One of the most challenging part about this fan types is to clean the fan blades. You would still need to remove the front portion of the fan to access the blades, but it would take someone quite a fair bit of time to clean all the 3 blades as shown.


Design Specifications: 
 Your task: Design and sketch a simple gadget or device that would help an average adult to clean the fan blades more efficiently, i.e. at a quicker rate. Your idea or ideas must include or use at least one recyclable material, and must be lightweight and simple to be cleaned too. It must be manually operated and is able to be used simply and effectively for those between the ages of 10 to 50. It should primarily be used at a home or classroom environment.

Sketch your idea or ideas in an isometric view, and include relevant details and information on how the device works. You may or may not use shape borrowing for this proposed solution/s.

Please take a photo or scan of your proposed idea/s and upload it into your personal ADMT blogs. Put in the URL of your blog posts into the 'Comments' section of this post. Follow this up with comments on at least 2 of your classmates' ideas! Consider the Creativity of their solutions, the quality of the sketches, and the overall presentation...as these 3 are key criteria of your test.