Project.two
Task.two
Project.two
Task.two
Project.two
Task.two
Project.two
Task.two
Project.three
Task.five
Project.three
Task.five
Pitch Video
A level 3 VFX students FMP
Pitch Video
A level 3 VFX students FMP
Pitch Video
power-point, and initial ideas
Initial ideas doc
what follows is evidence from the first few days of conceptualising the project
My initial project concept is an animated mini documentary with narration about either the first and second Mongol invasion of japan or the siege of Vienna, using a kind of animated kriegspiel format to show the battles on a unit on unit basis. Which will be animated onto premade battlefield maps, both made in illustrator.
this overall would be relatively easy and quick to animate whilst effectively getting across the strategy of the battle, I will be creating my own assets for both a large map of europe/asia and a few for specific battlefield sites. This will be as well as using contemporary and historical artwork for notable figures and combatants.
ā
It won't just be that however, between the battles I will edit together classical artwork from either period relating to whatever the current subject is.
The reason I decided to make this is because I enjoy learning and talking about history specifically about these two periods because both seemingly small battles/conflicts had large scale repercussions to both the imminent parties as well as the world at large. It also helps that this kind of animation is something I can do readily and to a relatively good standard, this will help me deliver a substantial amount of information with included background graphics to keep it interesting without too much strain on the time constraints, as this has been a big problem for me in the past.
kriegspiel for reference
As I developed the idea I started to think on what programs and research sources I would need I started by making a list: After Effects for animation, Premier pro for overall, Illustrator for creating specific assets such as troop blocks, portraits, flags, battle maps and overall large maps as well as vectorising the historical images for portraits.
The music I use will be largely video game background music, depending on what choice I make, siege of Vienna: mordhau and total war medieval 2 OSTs, Or Mongol invasion: total war shogun 2 and and ghost of tsushima OSTs, I will obviously also need google docs to write the script as well as audacity or audition to record and make it sound as good as it can.
ā
All of these resources are readily available to me and I'm extremely motivated and passionate about this subject so I believe I could definitely complete the work I'm going to set myself to a high standard well within the time constraints.
From this point on
I decided that I will take the project down the Mongol invasion path
Research Proposal
ā
There are a number of types as well as sources of research I plan to use whilst making my FMP, these include looking into and discussing my target audience, this would be anyone from 12 upwards as by that age I had a keen interest in medieval history, but I hope to narrow that down through research. I think the overall theme and mood of the project will turn out to be relatively analytical as the whole purpose is to simply convey what happened and the larger scale impact it may have had on the world.
ā
Obviously most of my research will be actually on the topic of the conflicts that occurred, because I can't make a documentary on something I don't know the details on, Wikipedia as always is a great source for pretty much anything historical and I've found national geographic to be a good source when it comes to the tsunamis or kamikazes that wiped out both the Mongol invasion fleets, other than those there are a good deal of information on YouTube from many history channels.
I will use this information to write a script that will include: a brief explanation of what built up to cause the event to happen, a play by play of the major events within the conflict, a mention of any notable characters or figures and a explanation of the aftermath as well as larger implications for the world at large.
The content that history YouTube channels create is going to be what I base my mini-documentary on, a lot of said historically focused channels use the same kind of Kriegspiel presentation for showing battles that I mentioned before as it effectively shows us the troop movements and contact points I will eventually do an analysis of a few select ones that I find to have features and talking points I like.
ā
I will have to research a number of things concerning the technical side of making this project such as how to make and what style of battle maps I'll use, the same with the troop types, as well as the large maps of Europe or Asia. I will more likely than not use YouTube for any of the skills I don't already possess. One Thing that has come up has been the problem of a voice actor, as I myself aren't exactly a brilliant narrator, I will have to do some research about how to find a suitable actor.
I am also planning to contact a professional or expert on social media on either topic, this will help me get more context and research and I may find out things I didn’t previously know.
the Power point
The full pitch of my project
Pitch Video & questions
Evaluation
In my opinion the presentation of the pitch powerpoint went quite well, I started off stuttering and saying ‘uhh’ quite a bit but as i got more and more into the flow of the pitch I think it got less frequent. I'm very happy with the content displayed in the pitch as I thought it did an excellent job of showing how my idea developed and what I want to accomplish with the project. I gave examples of the type of media that I plan to include as well as some that I intend to draw from as inspiration.
In total the pitch video is about 18 minutes long, about 8 is just about feedback and questions so I'm sure I’ve got a good deal to talk about.
Most if not all of the feedback was positive Lizzy saying how I presented my idea clearly and that the video and audio examples really helped show what It will look like, sound like and where the drama of the pieces will come from. She said that she really enjoyed it and felt like she learnt something just from listening to the pitch, this is great feedback for me as the whole point of my project is going to be about getting people interested about this point in history. It's definitely a moral boost and signals to me that I'm doing something right.
We went on to briefly talk about my actual aesthetics and design of the powerpoint, this is something I thought was pretty necessary to focus on as a boring and simple looking pitch isn't going to engage anyone or get them invested in your idea. I basically took the images I'm using for my website as well as the font and colours to give it a sense of connectivity and completeness, the art I used was from the strategy game total war shogun 2 created by Roland MacDonald in imitation of the classic Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, obviously this tied into my project as it is focused on Japan.
The first kind of negative feedback I got was capital letters, to be quite honest this has always been a problem for me so i'll make sure to keep on top of this as I have a lot of writing to do. The next and far more important bit of the criticism is target audience, this is actually quite a big issue with my powerpoint as I didn’t really talk about it at all, bar one quite vague and general line in my research proposal slide.
I plan to rectify this in the research stage as mentioned in the video, I plan on creating a survey to find the types of people who watch the content I'm basing this project on and when emailing a youtuber ask them to put it on there twitter or some other form of social media, aside from this I will ask my class as well as some of my family to answer it as I'm sure there's bound to be a few people who watch historical documentaries at least.
We also talked about posting the survey to other places such as reddit and discord which I hope to follow up on when I've created it as it will give me a depth of research (that's assuming people will answer it) that will help me better understand what my perspective audience want from this type of content.
