Ben's Blog

Well after a bit more modeling today i've started the living room scene. This is one of the more complex scenes as there will be alot inside it. However the initial models and shape seems pretty good. The scale is correct as I measured each wall myself to make sure.

Well I've been doing some 3d modeling to try and get some of the scenes out of the way..

This is the reference image I used for the hallway scene.



These images are an inital test but as you might be able to see the scale and proportion is a little wrong.




These next images are from the re modeled hallway scene with the correct scale and measurements. I will be leaving the texturing and rendering for a few weeks as I still have to learn some new techniques.

Research

North Kingdom

• This is where I got most of my inspiration from. North Kingdom make seemingly boring topics into interesting and fun projects. This way it keeps people interested and remembers their product. They used a milk awareness campaign and turned it into a fun 3D animated board game. This is the same thing I’m trying to do with my project. I would like to turn the boring topic of construction commercials into something fun and interesting.

Wild Therapy

• Wild Therapy is a weird website promoting a travel and holiday planner. They specialize in wild safaris and can plan your trips for you. But it isn’t the organization that interests me. It’s the way the website is set out. It’s similar to the way I would like to make mine. Simple and dark but effective.

Construction Websites

• The construction websites research is all websites on construction or real estate. The examples I’ve included show their layout when they deal with plans and video embedding. As the main website behind the www.dontliveintheshadows.com is a construction website I thought it would be a good idea to look into how it is done in reality.

Wikipedia

• “An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). Advertising campaigns appear in different media across a specific time frame.

The critical part of making an advertising campaign is determining a campaign theme, as it sets the tone for the individual advertisements and other forms of marketing communications that will be used. The campaign theme is the central message that will be communicated in the promotional activities. The campaign themes are usually developed with the intention of being used for a substantial period but many of them are short lived due to factors such as being ineffective or market conditions and/or competition in the marketplace and marketing mix.”

Hide and seek style flash games or games where you have to find things.

• http://www.donpixel.com/play/en/061016055711/

• http://www.gamesforwork.com/games/play-9077-Seascape-Flash_Game

Project 2 Synopsis

Imagine you’re on the train home from work and you spot this weird billboard. All it says is “Don’t live in the shadows” and has a website down the bottom. It crosses your mind that it is weird but you don’t think too much on it. The next day while you board the train to work you notice a poster. It has a black featureless character in front of a lounge room and it says “Find all the shadowmen, get 20% off”. It doesn’t say what the discount is on but it you do realize that it might have something to do with the billboard you saw the previous day. Again you find the lack of information interesting.

Later that night you are watching TV when you spot the television commercial. It seems to be advertising an apartment construction company but there are weird little black featureless men running around and hiding under furniture as the camera comes into the room. While you’re watching, you piece together that this must be another one of those shadow adverts. And sure enough at the end of the commercial it links the same website. www.dontliveintheshadows.com. You realized that if you put all the advertising mediums together they are suggesting that you can get 20% off a new apartment, but only if you can find all the shadowmen. But how do you find the shadowmen?

Intrigued you jump online and go to the website. You arrive to a mostly black site with little detail that says “enter”. You hit enter and you are taken to a game. There is a small description on what the controls are but it doesn’t explain what you’re looking for. But because you’ve seen the billboards and posters you know you must be searching for those shadowmen. You also realize that the game levels match the scenes you saw in the TV commercial. After some time playing you realize that the game is very difficult if you don’t know where the characters are. So you think to yourself that next time you see the posters and TV commercial you will remember or write down where the characters are hiding. Using the information you have seen in the various posters and the TV commercial you know enough to find all the shadowmen.

Eventually you finish the game and are given the discount code and the link to the main website. So you can now purchase your new apartment with a massive 20% off discount.

Project 2 Proposal:

What I aim to produce for this project:

• · 30 second – 1 minute animated TV commercial made in Autodesk Maya. I will use Adobe After Effects for some final touches and special effects.

• · Examples of Poster Advertising

• · Examples of Billboard Advertising

• · Examples of the website and online flash game.

The TV Commercial will include a slow motion fly through of one of the apartments for sale. While the viewer watches the TV commercial they may notice little black “shadowmen” running and hiding just as the camera spots them. The TV commercial will also have music and text effects added in After Effects.

The poster advertising will include images of what the character looks like. They will be displayed in some of the scenes from the TV commercial. They will be displayed along with the message “Find all the shadow men. Get 20% off”.

The billboard advertising will be mostly blank except for the slogan “Don’t live in the shadows”. The website www.donthideintheshadows.com will also be displayed on the abstract billboard. I will also show how the billboards will be displayed in public spaces (e.g. Train stations).

The website example will be made to show how the over end campaign would work. Unless I get a lot of time It will not be a working website. The site will show how the game works and how the users play through the levels. It will include screens from the TV commercial as levels.

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The idea is to produce a campaign that’s abstract but also interesting. People can’t just get this 20% discount on the apartment they want to buy. To do it they have to figure out where the hidden characters are and to do that they need the information from the other advertising mediums.

Well. Back uni.. [sarcasm]Wooooo!![/sarcasm]

We have received the first brief for this semester and it is the follow up assignment after the second assignment last semester.

I am aiming to create a online/television commercial for a company who make 3D models of buildings to promote to clients. It is meant to showcase the companies work so the commercial will include 3D renderings.

As a twist the commercial is part of an advertising campaign labeled "Don't live in the shadows". The commercial will include little characters which hide from the camera. They are meant to represent people hiding/living in the shadows.

That is it for now but watch this space for more information..