Finished Compass Leaflet

The Compass Program Leaflet has been fully completed. I felt that Adobe Indesign was quite a useful software to create brochures like mine as you could edit it like an image in photoshop. Anything could be done on the template ranging from simply inserting text to creating image and blending effects of images on to the template. For my final leaflet I have included information on:

• Introducing the program
• How it benefits the children
• The teachers in the Program
• The school system
• The School Curriculum
• The current state of the program
• Contact information for the program

Apart from all these information I have also included many images on the leaflet. There are unages if students working and also of a recent sports day event. The background has a gradient which makes it much more attractive and not just plain white. I have also used transparent effects on images such as the logo which I put behind the introduction of the program. These images could be faintly seen but still adds to the attractiveness of the design. Last of all I made sure that the last page of the booklet contained the contact page as it is how most commercial leaflets are laid out.

Compass Leaflet

Other than the documentary video of the Compass I have also created a leaflet to inform parents about the program. The leaflet is a tri-fold brochure that contains information all about the program. This information I have gathered from the Powerpoint that I has already been finished and been sent to me by my clients. The leaflet contains a cover page which is seen on the left side. This is what the parents would see when handed the brochure, a cover containing the logo of the program and also the school logo. This cover aims to attract the attention of parents as compared to a PowerPoint it is quite colourful and flashy.
Inside the Leaflet, apart from lots of information written in text I am also aiming to add in quite a few images to make the leaflet more attractive. Each fold of the leaflet should contain at least one image or it would be quite dull to read a page that is full of text. One of the sections I have finished inside the leaflet would be the teacher introduction section. This section contains images of the teachers themselves followed by captions introducing them.
Other than starting on my leaflet another thing I learnt from Adobe Indesign was the use of guidelines. I drew up guidelines to help show where fold lines for the leaflet would be located and also margins to limit where my words go. These are very useful to me as it makes sure that when the leaflet is printed each fold would be of exact width as I could type it exact positions of guidelines in Indesign, and this also ensures that no text would cross fold lines and be in other folds. I hope to finish the leaflet soon.

Documentary Video

The progress in this project has been quite satisfactory. Currently I have been focusing on the documentary video which is to be an informative video that is viewed by parents. I already have the plan of the entire video which I would include as part of my design work in the final portfolio of the entire project. The documentary is beginning with the logo of the compass program and the compass hands in the logo would spin. This is quite an intriguing effect we are using and we plan to use it not only for the documentary but also for the promotional video. This spinning logo introduction is to represent the program like a banner to show that it is an entirely separate program from the school itself and that it has its own aim. For the documentary I have also included many interviews from both the students and the teachers. The teacher interviews are used to explain about the program itself and how it differs. Student interviews are a chance for the current students to express their own views on the program. Different shots of lessons in the compass program are also used.
Below is a screen shot of an interview shot. It was originally filmed from a distance but by using the Event Pan/crop tool that is available in Vegas I moved the clip so that the teacher would be speaking from the left side of the screen and also a closer view. This lets the teacher be the dominant image in the video and causing the viewer to concentrate mainly on her.












On the right side is a screenshot of a freeze frame which I used in the video. This freeze frame is used to introduce the teachers as the name of the teacher appears just as the picture freezes. This is a effect where I got the inspiration from advertisements. This freeze frame is during a clip of the teacher teaching the students or student



On the left this is the screen shot of an interview with one of the students. This particular student had a slight problem with speaking and to help with the viewer understanding what she is saying I added some subtitles to aid the viewer




The last screen shot I have here on the right is what I am using for the end of the documentary. For this scene I am putting 4 clips together they would be playing at the same time but in 4 separate parts of the screen. In the middle I would be adding the compass program logo with the spinning compass hands which is to help show that the compass program consists of all these types of teaching. The 4 clips include a clip in the library, students working hard in the room and also the teacher teaching.

Current Progress

By now I have made progress on both the video and started the leaflet. The information needed to be included on the leaflet could be found in the PowerPoint my Client had sent me. It needs to be as informative as the PowerPoint but the difference is that it needs to be attractive, not dull like a PowerPoint. To make it attractive I have decided to add images and not just plain text. The leaflet is the most informative piece of promotional material in this project. I have decided to create a fold up leaflet that has 3 folds with information printed on both sides. The program I used for the leaflet is Adobe Indesign. I am slowly getting more familiar with the program as it is quite a different program to Word or Publisher.
On the left you could see the layout of one side of the leaflet. The blue guide lines are there to guide me on where to insert images and words. The line in the center shows where the folds are and the other two guide lines are margins.




For the documentary video I have been adding effects to the clips and putting the whole video together. The process is surprisingly easy as all I have to do is follow my notebook which I had planned the scenes of the video and also included what effects I need to add. All I have left to do is to test the effect out, make sure it runs smoothly and that the result is satisfying. On the right side is a screenshot of what I have done. There are still a few clips missing, but apart from that I have almost completely finished the video. The screenshot on the bottom right is of a small section of the video. Here I have wanted to create a freeze frame and to do this I have inserted the velocity envelope and reduced it to 0% for the video to be still. I found this quite easy to do and currently finding Vegas a very user friendly program.

Client Communication

Delay in Time plan

There has been a delay in my timeplan as I hope to be able to be filming the documentary video and promotional video by today. The planning for the video has been fully completed in the form of sticky notes in a notebook. The parental letter at first was written in view of the teachers but after discussion with them we have decided to change it to be written from ourselves this way the parents will know clearly what is going to happen and why we are doing it which is to promote the program. We have now sent it and hopefully our clients will hand it to parents so we could be up and filming soon. Because of the delay in filming we hope we can film in a shorter period or we would have to be running late into our timetable.

Sony Vegas effects

In the documentary video, I have almost completely finished designing the layout of the documentary video and decided that the effects I use on it must be simple, attractive and not too flashy. After a quick run through of transitions for words I have decided on 4 effects to stick with they are:

• Cross Blur A/B
• Cross Pixelate A/B
• Linear wipe top left diagonal, soft edge
• Slide in, left-right

All these effects are to be found in Sony Vegas. The sticky- notes plan I am writing on is aimed to be able to have many annotations that simply the person reading it would be able to just pick it up and work from it easily even if they don't know ho to use the program.

Design Work

The timeplan and the final confirmation has been completed now and I can now get on with design work. To start with I should first start designing the video documentary, promotional video and also the leaflet. To design the outline of our video documentary I am going to use word to make a list of different scenes in the order they should appear in the video. They are put in chronological order and in each scene would be annotated with detail specifying what is happening, the editing that needs to be done and also effects etc. The documentary and promotional video I would mainly just use hand drawn images to show the scenes as it is much easier than drawing images on the computer. The leaflet design work could be done on the computer and this time I plan to use prezi and add parts and annotations to a blank in design document and each description would be about what exactly it should include which includes images and texts.

Parental Letter

Today I have been working on the parental letter that is to be used to ask for parents to allow their children to appear in the documentary video. This letter would not include just plain text that letters usually have but also the Sha Tin College Logo, the Compass Program Logo and also the a banner which we would create and would be unique to each letter from the Compass Program. This banner would include a slogan for the compass program and would have to do with guiding students in the correct path and at the same time like a compass they should be directing them. After brainstorming we feel that the word 'direct' should be included in the slogan because it is a word used well in slogans but also fits in with the specifications of the slogan that we were given. The banner shows to the parents how the Compass Program itself is an entirely separate program on its own not just part of the school. The text would include reasons why we need to include the students in the video which is to show how it is currently running. At the bottom of the letter I would have the signature of both Ms Loebig and Ms Stein. Then would be a confirmation slip for parents to sign.

Sony Vegas Text effects

During today I have studied on different ways to create both text and intros on the 2 videos I am going to create. The intros and texts for the two videos would be slightly different. On the the documentary there should mainly be the documentary of the students in the program working and also some interviews. Text and intros in that one could be quite simple as it is just aimed at parents to introduce them to program. Adding many flashy text and effects would prove inappropriate for this particular video. The two links I have found as quite good ideas for an intro for the documentary would be :
http://filmmakeriq.com/2010/07/sony-vegas-tutorial-how-to-create-a-fast-simple-intro/












http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/creating_exciting_text_in_vegas_pro_8














For the promotional video I have found 3 intros that I felt could be quite attractive to viewers



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dembi0WFv1g













http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DecWm90HsW0













http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHsQRkMYyGM












The first 2 intros that could be used for the promotional video are similar, both cloud effects. This gives quite a mysterious feel as if someone is about to discover something. The last effect is the one I like best. Where the text is right now could be the words of the Compass Program. It is a good promotional introduction.

Compass Program Documentary Video

To begin on the documentary video we would first need to send newsletters to parents notifying them about us filming their children. This is because they each have their own confidentiality to be able to refuse letting their children appearing in the video. To create this I will simply first use Microsoft Word to type up the data needed to be included in the newsletter. This includes what their children are going to participate in and also how the video is going to be used and why they are needed. Typing the text up is quite simple job but what we want to add is a distinctive letter heading for the compass program. We are going to use photoshop or Xara to create a distinctive banner for newsletters from the Compass Program. This shows that the compass is a large project not just a small program connected to school. To send the letters out we can use the feature mail- merge. I have studied this before but forgot how to do it. I have gone on the internet and found many tutorials for different word softwares of how to mail merge. On the left is a screenshot of the tutorial to mail merge on Microsoft Word.

Change in Final Products

After much careful discussion with my client we have decided that the final products would just be a leaflet and a documentary video. The documentary video would cover the promotional video as well as it can contain some flashy videos of the compass program. We have decided that if there were two separate videos showing the parents may be quite difficult as they would have to sit through two separate videos on the same topic.
The virtual tour would not be created as there would be too much work to be done as there is already a leaflet and documentary. Our client agreed as well that a interactive tour may not be used frequently by parents as they tend to look for more factual information such as through brochures or videos. To summarize this up I am aiming to create a documentary that promotes the program while informing parents about it and also an informative leaflet.

Virtual Tours

Today I have looked up tutorials to help me use the three virtual softwares (tour Vista, Pixtra Tourmaster and Real Tour Vision. From the youtube videos it looked quite simple, just firstly signing up and then simply getting pictures together to form a virtual tour. However I encountered my first problem while using Tour Vista. On the sign up page of the software it is required that you put a location of your building as it is a software designed to be used by real estate agents or people selling their houses so people would be able to view the house interior without needing to travel there. As you can see on the right there is a map to show which location your estate is located. There is also a requirement of adding price detail. This is definitely not the ideal software for creating a tour currently. The second picture is pixtra tourmaster. I have only viewed it slightly and now it seems slightly more complicated than tour vista but on the good side no location is required

Interactive Software

This week I have thought of an idea to make an interactive school tour to let parents get a glimpse of the environment and also a better understanding so parents will feel much more comfortable handing their children over to the school for education. I have looked through many softwares that may help me be able to create an interactive tour. These Include Tour Vista, Real Tour Vision and Pixtra Tourmaster. There are many other softwares that can help create virtual tours such as Raptor Vision but the problem with those ones are that they come with a cost and are used more for large companies such as hotels. Tour Vista, Real Tour Vision and Pixtra Tourmaster are all free software to use and are quite easy to use too. I haven't looked into the tutorials yet but looking at the description it basically puts a number of pictures together to form a virtual tour. Next lesson I will look into more detail on the softwares and watch some tutorials.

My client

For my Year 11 project I have decided to work for our school's two EAL teachers Ms Loebig and Ms Stein. They want me and my partner Ryan Wong to design different media to help advertise a new program they are introducing called the Compass Program. This program consists of the teachers helping out students who are physically disabled and requires special attention to help keep up with their education. So far we haven't decided on any ideas yet but next meeting we would discuss the media we should use to advertise.

Client's Specifications

During the week I have contacted the client on what items I would need to help them create. We have already decided firstly that one of the key ways to sell the Compass Project to the parents is by using a leaflet. This is because a leaflet contains plenty of information about the program along with many pictures and visuals to give an insight. Leaflets are mainly made by using Microsoft Publisher as they contain many templates which are quite attractive. Other than the leaflet they have asked us to create a logo. The Logo we have already finished designing. It was designed using Photoshop. This was done by my partner Ryan Wong. This is the Logo on the right we have designed. It consists simply of just a compass along with the words Compass Program. But creating this required many layers to be made and also effects.
After that we also decided we should create a documentary on the project and maybe a website to inform people about it.