Identifying Technical Skills

Suman Uttamchandani

Using Google Sketch Up

• I want to use Google Sketch Up to help me make a professional looking logo to put at the beginning of my movie. It just makes me and my partner (the producers and directors) seem more professional because Warner Brothers, Dream Works and other famous studios always put their logo at the beginning of their movies.

• With the software, currently I am unable to do anything on it. I have never used this software before, so it is very new and confusing for me. I am finding it very hard and complex to use and think that it is going to be a huge challenge! After looking at some tutorials, and practicing with the programme, I hope that I will be able to design a logo. I am imagining my logo to be 3D and with a background .

• First, I watched several tutorials on how to use Google SketchUp as I have never used it before. Some of the tutorials I watched are:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktjpUuzilLU

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyXOng0nxS4

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn56PfjbM-c

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unK1eESWqZg

From knowing nothing to creating…

Step One• I printed the screen of the Warner Brothers. I decided to copy the screen of the Warner

Brothers logo. I thought a similar logo would ne good for my logo because WB has two letters whereas me and my partner decided to name our company ST productions because her name starts with a T and mine a S. I have not learnt anything new from this point, as I knew how to screen shot before doing watching a tutorial and doing this step.

Step 2

• I inserted the picture I screen-shotted from the internet on Google Sketch Up. I did not know this before watching tutorials, however I think that even without watching the tutorials, I would still have been able to figure out how to do it.

Step 3• By using the drawing symbol, I managed to draw the outline of the border

surrounding the WB from the original Warner Bros logo. I found this difficult, because it was difficult to be precise while drawing the outline. At times my tracing was inaccurate therefore had to start from the beginning many times. I would have been able to do this without the tutorials and practice because the drawing icon was very identifiable and obvious.

• The drawing icon

Step 4

• After tracing the border, I deleted everything else. It was not hard, it was surprisingly easier than I expected.

Step 5

• Here, I just went to the text button which is circled in red to just type in the letters ST in the middle of the shape I traced the border for. This was one of the easiest parts of using sketch up in my opinion.

Step 6

• Then, I clicked a button that would make the shape (with the letters) appear to be 3D. This just lifts up the shape. It was straight forward, and the button I clicked is circled in red in the picture.

Step 7• To make the logo more interesting, I thought I needed to add some colour, so I did!

I thought that because I am making a video about learning Chinese, that I should make my logo related to the ‘Chinese’ theme. So, I thought that the best way to do this was by using elements of the Chinese flag. So I decided to make the colours of the logo red and yellow, while the background will be of stars as the Chinese flag also has stars. The button I changed my font with is the icon circled in black.

Step 8

• After changing the colour of the logo, I found a picture off Google of stars. I screen shotted the picture and inserted it as the background of my logo, then added the word ‘PRODUCTIONS’ at the bottom, then my logo was complete.

Using Corel

• Corel is a graphic processor, and the reason I chose this software was also because I have never used it before. I could have used ‘Paint’ or ‘Kid Pix’, but I thought that I would not be challenging myself, yet I was interested in learning how to use this software. Since I have never used this software before, I did not know anything about it. Therefore, I searched for some tutorials so that I could become a little more familiar with it. Some of the tutorials I used were:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAi344oKdjw• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKvjeO93bvg• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVceXW_yvQM

• Again, I wanted the them of the China fag to be recreated, therefore I decided to actually use a China flag and insert “Zhong wen” (in chinese, meaning ‘Mandarin’) instead of the big yellow star.

• On my computer the poster blinked, however when pasting it on this presentation, the poster stopped blinking. So I put it through a website, which shows how the poster is meant to look. Here is the link of the poster.

• http://makeagif.com/i/PVUyoZ

• Overall, I found that SketchUp was an easy tool, but I only realised this after I practiced and watched tutorials. At first, I did not understand how to use it, however now it seems so simple. I have learnt how to use SketchUp and I am sure that I will re-use it in the near future, as it is very straight forward to use plus, my logo turned out to be aesthetically pleasing. I am also pleased with how I managed to make a flash poster using Corel. However, I found Corel to be harder to use in comparison to SketchUp. This could be due to the fact that I looked at slightly more SketchUp tutorials than Corel tutorials. So now, I am confident to say that I can get an image from the internet and transform the picture into a pleasing logo. This taught me how to become more innovative, as I transformed a well known logo into the logo I created. I also think that this made me more cautiaus about what I was doing, because if I made a mistake while tracing the Warner Brother logo, I had to start again. I am also more open-minded and more of a risk- taker as I did not go for the easy way out, I chose this software because I have never used it before.

Using Xtranormal• I used Xtranormal to enable me to create an animation video, which will be included in the

video. It is a very simple website, which allows you to choose a certain camera shot, choose the expressions of the characters, choose the setting of the video, choose the characters, background noises and more. In some aspects it was challenging, such as deciding which camera shot would communicate the message more clearly. I also find to watch Xtranormal videos to be humorous because of the fact the characters sound robotic! Therefore, I hope that it would liven the overall video which will include facts about China.