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We'll heres my attempt at a few basic animations of my name. I'll be honest i've not really got to grips with this yet, which i thought i would have tbh, nevermind. They were fairly quick attempts anyway. Lets hope the next renders from Max have a bit more POW! Sort of like Batman.

Task: Continue to research your concepts of self identity and what it means to you?

I found this task quite hard to interpret. Then it sort of dawned on me that what self identity means to me, must be how i interpret it as well.

I recently had a discussion with an old friend from school who is also doing a media related course at Northumbria University. He also has a module based on the idea of identity, his final piece was a stop motion animation which i think is definitely worth a look at.
Below, 'Wear Your Identity?' by Kallum Richardson:



After a bit of thinking i decided that i consider my self identity to be all the things that make me different from everyone else. What combination of things makes me different to the other person walking down the street. Is it clothing? Is it the food i eat? Is it the music i like? Whatever you choose, there's always someone that also likes it. Then it hit me, it's all of your preferences that make up your self identity. Its the clothes you wear, the music you like, the food you eat, the countries you like, the cultures you enjoy, the hobbies you do, the things that grab your attention, the films you like, then magazines you read. It's everything! The chances of another person having everything in common is almost impossible!

Now I've figured out what makes my self identity, i need a medium to show this. Initially i decided to go with a photo montage with images of things that represent all the things that make up my self identity. However i felt that this could be expanded on. So, with a similar theme, i decided to make an interactive self identity program using Adobe Flash.

The final product isn't finished yet but to give you a bit of an insight it will look a little something like this:




































The front screen of the interactive piece (left), is a picture of myself split up into 12 sections. Each one of these sections are labelled with something i feel make up part of my self identity. These included everything from photography to food. In the final product each box will link to another page with a brief description of what it means to mean and a collection of images to support it.

This is now in the production stage however more ideas do keep coming to me, hopefully it will work as well as i have envisioned.




'Wear Your Identity?'
Animation and Narration by Kallum Richardson
Audio by riddlez3

Well Happy New Year and a whole lot of stuff to talk about regarding the film industry ey? As you can see from my title, due to the whole Jonathon Ross - Russell Brand faff that happened earlier in the year I've taken it upon myself to deliver, to you, my film review of 2008.

So the big money makers last year were:
• Iron Man
• Indiana Jones
• Sex and the City
• Hancock
• Mama Mia
• The Dark Knight
• High School Musical 3
• Quantum of Solace
• Madagascar 2

All these films, in the UK alone bad surplus of £8,000,000 (that's eight million!) on their opening weekend. I'd like to say I'm enough of a film buff to have watched all of these and be able to give you a good review. Unfortunately I'm not, and can't think of anything worse than having to sit through a feature length rendition of Sex and the City. I also have an irrational hatred of musicals so that's Mama Mia and High School Musical 3 out of the question!

So what's left? We've got Iron Man, Indiana Jones, Hancock, Quantum of Solace and Madagascar 2. Yet again I'm a bit of a let down as I haven't seen Indiana Jones or Madagascar 2. Indiana Jones I feel should have been left in the 90's - that's my poor excuse for not watching that. However, I feel like I've let myself down by not going to watch Madagascar 2. I thought the first Madagascar film was borderline Shrek in its genius so I have no reason not to have seen it, except its not been out that long. But be sure I'll review it when I do!

Personally for me the film of the year without a doubt was The Dark Knight. As much of a tragic story followed the films production. The final piece of footage was the best I've seen for some time. That's why I want to save that film for last. However, Batman - a comic book hero. Iron Man - a comic book hero. Hancock - not a comic book hero, but a superhero non the less. The
trend into turning superheroes into film stars is something that has been evolving over the last 10 years.

On the release of the first Spiderman film and other early comic book films I found myself sitting in cinemas feeling that they were making films purely to show off new technology in film making. They were all just glamorised comic books. However, this latest incarnation of comic book films from DC, Marvel and the like really have started to get my attention.

I'd like to start with a brief review of Hancock - reason being, I felt it was a little bit of a disappointment. The film was given great publicity just before and on its release. Having one of the most established actors of the last decade, Will Smith, certainly convinced a lot of people they were in for a quality film. Normally, if I don't like a film, I don't talk about it. I find criticising the work of a few hundred Hollywood geniuses slightly hypocritical just because I don't like it. However, with Hancock, it wasn't that it was a bad film, it checked all the boxes, but for some unknown reason, for me, it just didn't work.

Hancock had a great story line, it had great special effects, it had great comedy scenes, it had great action scenes and it even had a good twist. Despite this something was missing. The film initially dragged me in via its trailers on the big a slightly smaller screens. The trailers showed two seriously attractive prospects. Firstly, an action film with some Will Smith comedy, we know from experience that's almost a sure hit. Secondly, a bad-ass super hero? Hancock seriously took the stereotypical and turned it upside down, inside out, gave it half a bottle of scotch and a brown paper bag. I think anyone that has the balls to walk into a production office and mention the words "How about a film where a homeless alcoholic with super human strength and the ability to fly occasionally beats up some bad guys?" must have a good concept within their head.

Despite the craziness of the idea I think this film could have been a classic. However, I feel that its amazing appeal also had a lot to do with its demise. The film was a comedy, the film was a superhero action film and the film was experimental idea. Had the film been two of the three, or even two with a tiny bit of the third it might have worked. However the film tried to be three, fairly conflicting, film categories. Unfortunately that for me just didn't work.

The next film on my list was one of pure genius. Iron Man. A tale of a bad guy gone good. A scientist of the coolest nature. A major kidnap. Corruption. Weapons of mass destruction. And a cracking sound track.

As far as I'm concerned it was amazing. Now don't get me wrong, as you'll read later on it's not my favourite, and I really don't think it's the best. However it is the one film this year that incorporates every aspect of comic book heroism. No more, no less - for me that really appeals. Some reviews state that the script is too far fetched, and they're right, but isn't the whole idea of comic book hero to be the guy (or girl!) that can do the un-do-able? It's for reasons like this I really enjoyed Iron Man.

The film prospers for a number of reasons. The first is a part of film making I have a seriously, potentially unhealthy, interest in...Cinematography. I really can't think of a major scene in this film where the director of photography has wimped out and gone "paint it black". This, from personal experience is a dramatic effort. There are a few scenes, mainly those shot in a cave in Afghanistan, where little light or colour can really be seen. However, it works beautifully and I don't think you could argue that it’s a technical decision to make the production crews lives a little easier. Overall a fantastic family(ish) film which can be watched over and over.

The darkest darks, the lightest lights. The Dark Knight. My favourite film of the year. Maybe my favourite film of all time. My admiration for this film is endless; I don't even know where to start. I may as well start with a brief explanation of 'the darkest darks, the lightest lights' it isn't just a good start to a paragraph; it is also a common description of the advantages of shooting in IMAX. For those of you outside the movie geek community IMAX is an alternative to the standard film used in film productions. I won't go into the technical differences as I would like you to carry on reading and not find something else to look at, however, I will just say that it's intended purpose is to overall improve the quality of recorded footage from everything to resolution to colour, texture and tone. IMAX was used to film some of the darker and more sinister scenes in The Dark Knight.

I feel that reviewing The Dark Knight would be unjust without at least a quick mention of its prequel, Batman Begins. Batman Begins really is all about setting the scene of Batman, not just for The Dark Knight, but for any batman film, ever. The majority of the film is based around Bruce Wayne (Batman's alter ego) and his rise from childhood to becoming Batman. There really aren’t many questions left surrounding Batman and how he does what he does.
At first I found Christian Bale’s interpretation of the Bruce Wayne character very challenging. The character was depicted as a very stuck up, whining, early twenties businessman at the start of the film. Which, as you might imagine is very un-like the stereotypical Batman image. After watching the next hour or so it is obvious that this was a very deliberate decision and works fantastically! I believe it was done to emphasise the transition from Bruce Wayne – Business Man to Bruce Wayne – Batman.

The rest of the cast is full of big name actors, whom, for once seem to be playing fairly small parts. Casting both Michael Cain and Morgan Freeman gave the film something really special from both parts.
Without giving a lot of the plot away I would like to mention some of the films for technical details. The ‘multiple ninja scene’ I found really impressive. The use of dark settings and shadows without loosing much set detail. The camera edits for this scene I found spectacular. I’ll admit that it did take two watches in order for me to completely understand what had happened for Wayne to deceive his master. But if you watch carefully its not hard to see how much time and effort must have gone into every aspect of this scene.

The rest of film follows the idea of Batman’s evolution and crime fighting. The end of the film even provides a bizarre, yet very well plotted, twist. The very last scene shows Batman and Gordon (portrayed by Gary Oldman) discussing a new threat arriving in Gotham. "Armed robbery, double homicide, got a taste for the theatrical like you," says Gordon. Followed by…"He leaves a calling card." Gordon then flips over a playing card…it’s a joker.
The ending of Batman Begins and the start of The Dark Knight couldn’t be anymore perfect for each other. The Dark Knight starts of with a shot of a man in a clown mask sliding down wire-rope onto the roof top of a bank. It is here where the power of the joker can first be felt and exactly how ruthless and uncaring this villain is, the bank belongs to the mafia.

The film is a complete mind-blow of action, adventure, law and gravity stunts with a much deeper emotional, eccentric and sadistic undertones on display at all times. Christian Bale returns as Batman again in this film. As I said previously about Bale’s performance being questionable at the start of Batman Begins, this act is nothing like. You really do get a fully fledged no nonsense superhero with nothing but a bad attitude towards his enemies.
One thing that has to be said about this film is that I’ve never seen a film with what to an uneducated eye are just normal sets but, to an educated eye have some of the most complex set designs and cinematography decisions of a modern blockbuster. Every single scene has been thought about until no more ideas were possible and I think that really makes the film. I couldn’t even start to explain one scene as it wouldn’t do the others justice. I can’t stress enough how anyone that has any interest at all in movies and cinema must watch this film, Batman fan or not.

Superhero films are well known for their use of elaborate costumes for both the good and the bad. The Dark Knight is no exception. Batman really has been given the full monty, clothes, cars and gadgets. The Bat suit in the film is a proper 21st Century piece of technology. Carbon fibre, Kevlar and some substances I’ve never heard of. The role of Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) when equipping Batman with his armoury and gadgets takes a very James Bond and Q relationship feel. Slightly love hate, but it always works in the end.

Christopher Nolan, the director of the last two Batman films, I believe, is one of the key factors to the success of these films. Nolan definitely seems to have bought Batman up to date without loosing any of the comic book magic. Nolan took a massive influence from the original Batman comics and a number of other publications from DC Comics.

The best costume decision in this film, without doubt, is that of the Joker, The Joker played by the late Heath Ledger, took on a costume very unconventional to the one shown in the original comics and earlier films. Grunge was the theme, and nothing but. This really suited the Jokers psychotic mentally ill persona. Unfortunately it was the amazing acting that produced the freak of the joker that lead to the tragic death of Heath Ledger.

Ledger was a method actor. Method acting for many, as with Ledger, involves living in the mindset of your character before and during the performance period. As you may imagine, living the mindset of a psychotic serial killer might leave you with some sleepless nights. As a result of this Ledger overdosed on sleeping pills. A tragedy, but for a performance he must be proud of.

In memory of Heath Ledger.

Task: Create an avatar in a 3D environment, spend time exploring a 3D environment whilst thinking about the role of identity in the virtual world. Keep a diary of at least 4 weeks of your experiences:

Week One:

The virtual environment i have decided to document and blog over the next 4 weeks is probably the most well known of the lot, Second Life. Second Life has been very well acknowledged over the past year by news and technology websites and journals, as well as a number of high profile companies including the local Nottingham based pharmaceutical company, Boots.

My choice to use Second Life was probably finalised once visiting the community's website. On my first visit to the website, www.secondlife.com, i was fairly impressed. The website displays a large quantity of screen shots showing the variety in avatar design, settings and potential things to do and explore whilst in the Second Life community.

The next stage is to install the application and get signed up. This took no time at all, the download and installation was very straight forward, and the same can be said for the sign up process. It was only when i got to the next stage i started to get a little less impressed.

During the sign up process your asked to choose a basic avatar which you will be then able to change in anyway in order to make it look like yourself. Given the choice of the bunch i felt that the fairly tall Caucasian male with longish brown hair probably would suite me best. Only problem was he was also wearing medieval boots and a cape. But I'm sure this can be changed :)

My initial avatar looked something like this:

As you can see, a little bit...old school?

OK, so we've got all the bases done and all there is to do now is make my avatar look a little bit like me, explore this sub-parallel pixelated world and think about the role of identity in this alternative environment.

When you first enter Second Life with your avatar you start off in a special area for novice user to help them understand the controls and functions.

In this novice section is where the majority of people start to customise their avatars. As did i, i thought best do it as most do (make it look like yourself) so i get the genuine Second Life experience - i think attempting to talk to people dressed as a 1300's vampire hunter might not go quite as expected. After figuring out how to change my clothing, Second Life uses a fairly complex menu-ing system, i applied fairly common clothing, slightly baggy jeans, a long sleeved t-shirt. My normal attire really...

Well...except for a few parts...

As you can see, a fairly normal clothing style, with err...the medieval boots and cape! I have tried many things to get rid of the cape, unfortunately it either wont let you, or the menu structure is so complicated it would require many hours to even get to grips with the basics.

Soon as i left the novice learning area i received a request to make 'Mahulu' my home area. Being a novice user i said yes. It was here i initially found one of the darker sides of Second Life.









Mahulu is an area of Second Life, created by users and can only be described as a haven for wannabe cyber-vampires. A strange concept i know. Below is an image from the inside of Mahulu:

As you can see from the picture, all the people in here have avatars dressed in gothic clothing, after hunting around a bit, i say hunting - i mean trying to escape, i even found a very pale avatar floating and requesting to bite me.

These people obviously enjoy the idea of vampires. However i feel that there maybe two different types of people in this area.

The first, the most harmless of the two - those who enjoy vampire related media, books, films etc are given the opportunity to live the lives of their heroes. Having told someone 20 years ago you wished to be a vampire might have caused some alarm bells to ring. You would probably have been a cause for concern. Despite this i believe that there are a number of reasons in modern culture why this behaviour might be considered almost normal. I think the recent increase in vampire films, and those in which vampires are given a positive form (ie Blade, Underworld, Queen of the Damned etc) have a lot to do with this. After all, someone running around a PC monitor dressed as Batman wouldn't be that strange...would it?

The second of the two types of people however i fear might be a cause for concern, especially if children can gain access to these parts of Second Life. To be honest, i was never asked to verify my age to gain access, this part of Second Life was shown to be when a mature content was turned on!

I believe that some people in the 'Mahulu' area of Second Life are not just living a super-hero type fantasy but are actually trying to live out a sexual fantasy. Now this is cause for concern. Allowing people to express there desires online, in my personal opinion, is fine. However i don't think enough is done to section this almost fetish related area from the business and educational features that can be achieved in Second Life. Evidence for this can be seen within moments of entering this area (and many others like it) by the language used by and directed to different users in that area.

After doing a bit of floating around, literally, in Second Life it is very evident that Mahulu is definitely nowhere near the only area with some potentially adult content. It is also very obvious it is by nowhere near the worse of those that do. After this slightly alarming few days discovering Second Life and have decided to give it a break for a few days. Will report back next week.


Week 2:

After last weeks introduction to Second Life and a slightly alarming examination of its user base i decided to go and have a look for landmarks and areas that may be familiar to me. I did a search for 'Nottingham' under place. This returned 1 result, and it wasn't Nottingham. It was a graphical re-construction of a market place from the 'Robin Hood' era of time. Even that wasn't very interesting.

After having a quick chat to a few colleagues it became evident that searching for different University areas were fairly easy to navigate to, so i gave that ago. When searching for Nottingham Trent University 0 results were provided. I'm not entirely sure i understand the search function as companies and organisations i was fairly sure had Second Life simulations weren't returning any results. Either way i did a search for the second closest Uni, Nottingham University. This did provide a result.

Below an image of my avatar exploring around Nottingham University:












The above shot was taken from inside a graphical representative of their main building, the Trent Building. Unfortunately, although expectantly, some areas of Nottingham University's area were restricted to students and staff on their University only. An image of me attempting to access the restricted part of Nottingham University's area below:

It is evident from this though that Nottingham University is using Second Life for more than just, well, experimenting with 3D environments. From what i could gather it seems that even fairly important documents are being transferred through Second Life. Another area sculpted on a beach was also used for students to save there work to electronically.

I'm not entirely sure how using Second Life to do this would be financially, securely or conveniently over a university's intranet site - like NTU's Now site. However I'm sure there is a reason for it, it may be for a more educational approach for some students.

Later this week i decided to try and find some more places i know. To be completely honest not many locations i searched provided many results, never mind areas i was permitted access too. During this fairly frustrating search function i did, almost by accident, figure out how to remove my medieval clothing accessories!




















Given my new slight obsession with DSLR photography i decided to look up Nikon, my favourite camera manufacturer. Surprisingly Second Life has a fairly comprehensive catalogue of Nikon related areas. The majority of which are fan bases and groups as opposed to physically explorable locations. However, there was one location which i decided to give a small visit too.

This Nikon area, I believe was fan based and not produced by the corporation, although i could be mistaken. The main clue i got that made me believe it was fan based was that all text throughout this area was written in Spanish (i think), which, as you may have guessed, isn't Nikon's country or origin. Despite the language issues (me not knowing Spanish), this part of Second Life could be used as a resource for education or camera fanatics. The main building on the Nikon site contains references as fact sheets for Nikon's breakthrough cameras throughout history. This shows a a real potential for Second Life as an information resource. When the technology used to operate Second Life improves (e.g. Internet speeds, graphic cards etc) this could be the next Wikipedia.

Below, an image of me in the Nikon area - now wearing a free Nikon t-shirt:

















Week 3:

Week 3 of 4 and I'm getting a bit bored if I'm honest. I've done a bit more exploring, and I've not found anything i really feel is worth reporting. And I'm pretty much at the end of patience in looking for excitement within it.

However i feel Second Life as a whole does deserve a general review. Personally, its not for me. At the moment anyway. Despite this i can see it's appeal for some people. I can also see why it could also be quite dangerous too.

In my personal opinion i believe that currently Second Life has limited uses. The uses it does have though could improve some peoples quality of life. After all, Second Life is a virtual role-play, whether you play yourself or an alter-ego. For some, an alter-ego is the closest they will ever get to a normal existence. I can see how being able to socialise without criticism or segregation from normal society is tempting to some. Especially those with physical health conditions. People that are bed struck or with very abnormal disfigured bodies may benefit from Second Life as it gives them some insight into living a normal life, from a social aspect at least.

Despite it's use for good and to help those that are unfortunate compared to most. I believe that there is risk that an over-use of Second Life may impair peoples real social skills. Mainly as it doesn't fully represent the true actions of most people and people may become accustom to their social methodology in Second Life and start using more of it their real life. A social methodology of a vampire is a worrying thought.

From a information and educational perspective i think Second Life has got a long way to go. I believe that it could be very effective for transmitting information in multiple forms. This would mean that text, film, audio and interactive based information could all be sourced at the same time. However i do feel that there are some website already that offer a similar experience, and these don't require you to sign up and run around with a little 3D avatar before you can gain access to it.

In conclusion i believe that Second Life has the capability to one day be used for all your online needs and requirements, however until they do so i feel that Second Life's cons probably do outweigh it's pros.

Well, what can I say. My head hurts and I seriously need some sleep. All in the name of fun! During today’s recovery period I read a very interesting article in Digital SLR User Magazine, it's titled 'Winter Projects: A Picture A Day'. This article was written by photographer Charlotte Griffiths.

As a part of her assignment for January’s issue of Digital SLR User Mag she was to take a picture a day for a week. That sounds fairly easy, but, is it? Magazine photographers spend hours planning and setting up there kit in order to get the best shots for the glossy pages. So can you really get a magazine quality picture just in day to day life.

As you can imagine no one would write such a story up if it wasn't possible so obviously it is, she carried it off. So I got thinking, can an amateur do it too? One way to find out I think. So as my new year’s resolution I’m aiming to take a picture a day for the whole of January. There will be a folder on my deviantart gallery named, January. All 31 images will be placed in there. Let me know what you think.

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Tom