new brief...

High Class Penguin is basically a brand-bully site. I've updated the site with a "video zone", which will contain videos of a series of stories on this related topic. The main page for "video zone" will be a advert/introduction clip to the stories. The videos of the stories will be categorized and listed under the zone for easy navigation. As the "High Class Penguin"logo is quite cartoon-like, I've incorporated animations in the videos to make it the same style as the site.

Project2 Completed

have been getting people through MSN and Friendster to sign up for my site, post up comments and photos.

here's a link to High Class Penguin :
http://www.jc-story.com/wordpress

work progress... 07/04

Have been working on the development of the site over the weekend. The hard part I guess is getting the photo gallary to embed into my "image zone". Have encountering problems here and there throughout the process but oh well my gallary is now successfully up and running in a perfect condition! hurray! users can upload images, leave comments, and rate the photos in my gallary~

work progress... 05/04

not really satisfied with the theme I last modified. So, I've look through a few more themes, playing around with their CSS. Finally decided on a theme that I'll use. Have also made a headear and background for my site.

header development:

work progress... 03/04

03/04/2008

Looking for wordpress themes, have found a theme that have simillar layout with my design. For now I'm still in the progress of editing the design and layout to the design I want for my "High Class Penguin" site.

work progress... 31/03

31/03/2008

Site design:

I've planned out the structure and made drawings on how my site is going to look.

My site is basically contained of 4 zones : home, image zone, information and talk free zone.

home: the home page of the site

image zone : containing 3 gallaries : "moving billboards" containing images of people wearing lots of branded products on their body; "real vs fake" comparing images of real and fake branded products; and "crazy price" containing very images of products which people thinks is too expensive and not worth the price.

Information : articles or readings that discuss on the relevent issues.

talk free : for people to comment on this issue

Choosing a technology:

I've frist installed Silver Stripe, and have done a bit of its tutorial. But after I have discussed my ideas and site design with Rowen, he suggested me to use Wordpress as wordpress is better in creating a community and for posting up images and comments for the site.

Project2 Concept

My concept for this project is about human desire after branded items.

As a human, we always tend to in favor of branded materialistic items. A lot of people are willing to pay a much higher price to buy these branded items, even though their income will not justify for their ability to buy them. However there's always a question being asked: whether these branded items worth the value for the money we pay for them?

In this project, I will create an active webpage that outline this cultural issue in a satire way.

Project1 Over...

Project1 is finally done and over.

Looking back at this project, I felt there's still some part ,eg. text, in the video that i can further modify to make it better. But overall, it is not bad i guess, haha, hope you enjoy the video.

Uncurable Memories

Project1 Progress Update

Over the last few days I've exported the edited movie from avid and bring it into after effect for further editing. I've played with features such as colour, bringtness, contrast etc, experimenting on them to see which creates the best result/atmosphere for the video. Finally I've decided to make the "memories recall" part more bringht and redish in colour to distinguish it from "present day reality". I've also added texts to give the viewer a better idea on the movie.

Reading Response : Remix and Remixability by Lev Manovich

Remixing to my understanding is just about copying bit and pieces from whole lots of different designs and gluing them back together to form a so called new design, and the potential for these new design is normally limited to whatever informations that are there for you to use. I mean although the internet has given us opputunity to easily access to limitless informations, but in a way we are still being limited to the sources that are available. So, I wouldn't consider a remix piece as a new design, maybe a refined or degraded version of the original piece would be a better description. A new design I think should really be original.

Project1 Progress

Over the weekend, I've look through all the raw footages, and decided to use packet3 and 4 for my project. By now, I've already finish editing the basic structure for my storyline.

I've also looked through the music options available on the stray cinema website, and found one that are suitable for my project. I think the rythem and the slow pace of this music is good to create the atmospher of "sadness".

music option: www.myspace.com/ignaciosimon - Tema cursi para doc...

Project1 Concept

My concept for this stray cinema project is basically about a man confessing on what he did in his past. At night he'd sit in this alley, thinking back on the terrible things he had did here.

The aim / idea I was trying to bring out from my video:
Time may be pass by, but memory will never fade. Certain wrong doings we have done in the past, the memories will haunt us for life, and these memories will torture us until the day we die.

Reading Response : "The Data Wars" by Josh Mchugh

This article has discussed on a few issues, one of them to be the web security and copyright. Listpic concept of pulling images from Craigslist and reorganize them into a single page for easy navigation is providing much comfort for the users of both Listpic and Craigslist. However, the act of scraping is no better than a spammer. Listpic is making quick money from displaying contents without getting permission from Craigslist. Craigslist should protect its content or client data, so if Craigslist wants to take legal action against Listpic, it has the right to do so. Therefore in my opinion, a permission such as API is necessary, at least the security and copyright issue will be under control.

“The individual owns the data. Even if it sits in some company's server farm.” I agree with Hoffman opinion that the user owns the data. The permission of the use of data should be set by the users themselves, weather they want or allow their data to be used or display by another web company. As such, the issue of infringement into the individual data copyright and privacy law may not arise.

Besides, the article has also outlines the danger for the business model that base themselves on the contents and informations of another web company by scraping. Just like how Listpic was banned instantly after being caught, the impact on it is huge. It had fallen from its perch as one of the top 15,000 sites on the web on its popularity, to somewhere below 100,000th place within weeks.

In summary of what the article has outlined, the privacy and the copyright act in this networking system is getting more and more important as more user is getting into the web to display their data and informations, so it is important that a proper guide line be set out for the user and web companies to be followed.

Last year... This year...

Last year I have done some interesting projects throughout the year, including web design, interactive design, as well as making a few short movies. Through these projects, my passion for design have definitely grow stronger. Especially in the making of those short movies, I enjoyed so much during the process of making it, producing it and editing it. I hope this year I will learn more useful techniques as to improve further in all aspects of movie making.