The Hobbit - Desolation of Smaug

I finally went to see the new Hobbit film and loved every minute of it. It was breath taking through the amount of attention dedicated to the surroundings, the look and act of the characters and the animation of the orcs and Smaug. The characters felt more realistic and not wooden through the use of small movements, such as biting finger nails, repeating a word twice as they are taken back by something, it just made the film that much more lovable and amazing. The visual effects matched with the animation of the environment made the atmosphere tense and projected the mood of the scene to the audience well.
 

In this film we finally see Smaug, and the design of the animation was gorgeous, it felt real, with the cracks and edges of the scales that all had tints and shades of colour as a response to the lighting, the close up of the eye was outstanding with the inclusion of the reflected light and the pattern of the iris which was surrounded with the tactile scales of its flesh. The facial expressions of the dragon were equally outstanding which was created with the use of motion capture from the voice actor, Benedict Cumberbatch. To show age to Smaug the detail of the scales were attacked with dead looking flakes of scale and scars from previous encounters of life. I loved the secondary action and the anticipation as smaug summoned flames from his chest which is first seen glowing through his chest before he projects flames at Bilbo.

In the credits of the film, I noted that Weta Digital did the visual effects and animation, and they have done other well known films such as Iron Man, Man of Steel, Avatar, Tin Tin and District 9.

(For more information and images visit IMDB , USA Today and Weta Digital )

Understanding Copyright notes

Copyright is hard to maintain for your work, especially with the inclusion of the internet, where people can take your work and claim it as their own.

• To make the copyright symbol - alt + G for Macs and Ctrl +alt +c for PC  =  © 
• Copyright gives the owner the right to control the way that their material can be used.
• What is copyright? Copyright is a form of contract, telling the public that this piece of work belongs to you. That means that no one can copy, adapt, distribute it, present in public or performance, renting and lending without permission.
• What can be copyrighted? Films, Games, Animations, Music, Computer Apps, and Drawings/illustrations.
• What can you copyright? Work that you have solely produced or that of a collaborative effort. 
• Any content that is posted onto the internet that is made by you is automatically copyrighted in the UK. In the UK copyright is automatic.
• Who owns copyright? The author or creator in music, literary or works of drama. For example, for illustrations the creator and/or the company or employer that has commissioned them. However Copyright can be transferred or sold to another party only if legally transferred to own rights. 
• The duration of copyright varies but literature, artistic, photography and drama works remain under the persons copyright during their life time and 70 years after that.
• Getting permission to use work that is under copyright - contact the owner directly or contact the company/organisation who represents them, for example a record company. However you do not always have to seek permission but you have to when using the imagery or works for commercial purposes that require multiple copies. 
• To prove that the work is yours to begin with, if another person has claimed it is theirs, is to leave the original with a bank or solicitor or post it to yourself making sure there is a date stamp on it and that will prove it existed at a particular point in time. 
• Make sure you talk to people who are using your work and mark up the footer of your web pages with the copyright symbol, your name and year information.
• When posting work online onto other websites, ensure to read the terms and conditions, some websites may reuse your work without asking.
•  There are alternative Copyrighting solutions such as Copyleft. Copyleft is a form of licensing and can be used to maintain copyright conditions of works. Under Copyleft, an author may give every person who receives a copy of work permission to reproduce, adapt and distribute it. A complete opposite to the standard Copyright.
• Creative Commons (CC) is another alternative Copyright solution which was founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig. CC is a non for profit organisation that provides a legal framework to allow people to share and reuse. 
• Copyright can also be used as a form of promotion, such as allowing a small cluster of people to reuse the image, can attract a different audience of consumers.

Presentation Preparation Notes

Presentations are daunting. Even though I always prepare, have detailed notes just incase I lose track of what I was going to say, I always end up rushing through my slides, hardly saying anything that I was originally going to say.

I found the Presentation on 'Effective Presentations' really helpful as it broke down presentation to the basics and gave useful tips on how to present yourself when presenting your work.

• Presentations are about communication, a portrayal of your journey in which you can share your ideas, thoughts, progress and concepts. This leads to an opportunity for constructive feedback that can lead to improvement of work, or reveal an idea for your work that you wouldn't have necessarily considered. This feedback would come from your tutors and peers.
•  Presentations are a form of conveying meaningful information.
• Know your audiences, which are most likely to be your peers, this could include other audiences such as third or second years who don't know your work, therefore you need to inform them of what you are doing, so that anyone can understand what you are making.
• Explain what you are doing, how you got there, or even how you plan to get to the next stage; how you are going to move forward. 
• It is not about you. No one is judging you. A presentation should not be stressful. Have confidence in what you are saying.
• You need to be prepared. Run through the presentation a couple of times so that you know and understand your subject. Be prepared to answer questions and keep it simple, not a lot of content but each slide does need to make a point. 
• You can use imagery to illustrate a point but only when necessary as too many images clutter the powerpoint, and escapes the actual point of the slide. 
• Using too much text will put off the viewer, they will end up switching off and not paying attention to the points made. It will make people go to sleep. 
• People are here to listen to you, so don’t make the powerpoint a replacement for you, or else there's no point in being there.
• No bullet points and no transitions, this distracts the viewer and it is not very professional looking...
• The 8ft rule
  All slides should be readable from a distance think about the distance in which are from the audience and how big the screen is.
• You need to be enthusiastic, don’t have a monotone voice as that’s boring! Be persuasive, confident and be interested in what you are interested in!
• If you make a mistake just rewind, slow down and correct yourself, then move on. 
• You must know your script! Know what you are going to say in advance, don't wing it as that leads to forgetting important parts of the subject you are talking about.
• DO NOT LEAVE TILL LAST MINUTE, YOU'LL END UP WORRYING! Practice the week before as it'll give you a confidence boost.
• On the day of your presentation, arrive early to ensure that your presentation works and you can calm yourself down and run through the powerpoint in your head. Remember that less is more.
• Always offer the opportunity for the audience to ask questions.