I showed my video to Dr. Ken and he said there are certain things i can improve:

1. The video towards the end with the jumping people, was a little too long (40 secs)
2. Need more Cupcakes images at the end of the video


Since I managed to complete my project slightly earlier, I had the advantage to edit it before the final submission. So here's my Video Finale:

Flutterby Cupcakes Finale

I think Dr. Ken has a point about the finishing of the video. After adding more cupcake images towards the end of the video, I think I'm satisfied with my work ;)

What Have I Learned? (Part II)

|Review of the Video|

1. T.I.M.E is precious
It took me almost a week to complete my video editing. I know I can go on and on since it's really fun, but Ms. May Chan (a lecturer from MMU) gave me a very good quotation when she talked about designing. She said 'The thing about designing is knowing when to stop"...

For me, that was the best thing to do. So I did my final editing and finally... I STOPPED! I know I'll never be satisfied with the outcome till the final day of the submission.

2. Recycle!
Most of the images used in the video was edited in Photoshop. I changed the brightness and the contrast to make the pictures look clearer and nicer. The first assignment has helped me a lot! Most of the pictures I edited in Photoshop for the Poster, was used again for the Video. Well, that was my approach to save loads of time ;)


|Problems|
There are some difficulties i faced while editing the video. And it took some time to actually find a way to solve it. In some cases, I cant solve it at all. Let's take a look at some of it in details :

1. The entire video file went offline

When the files are offline, the screen goes red. The first approach i took was to replace each clip one by one. It took a lot of time and by the time i managed to replaced all of it, It was time for me to leave for class. So I switched it on after I got back and guess what? It went offline again!!!

I had no other choice but to open a new Sequence and paste everything from the previous one. That sort of solved the Offline problem.


2. Program Shut-Down

There was something wrong with my video and I was unable to encode the file. Everytime i save it, the whole program shuts down. So again, I had to copy the whole finished video, opened it in a new project and export it as a movie.

Exporting it as a movie result to a larger file size. The file was 105,052 KB (too large for the web). But after exported, it's no longer a .propj (Adobe Premiere Pro). It's now an .avi file (I named it 'Sequence 01').

Then I opened a new project and dragged the 'Sequence 01' to the Timeline. Only then I was able to Encode it to a smaller .avi file. The size was almost similar, but the encoded file was only 4,158 KB. See the difference?

In my understanding, there might be something wrong with my software or one of my files was corrupted.

Flutterby's Video

Flutterby Cupcakes

Finallyyyyyyyyy, I'm done! Hoorayyyyyyy! The only thing I dislike is the black frame beside the image (gap). During the Encoding/Rendering process, I cropped the image to nicely fit the frame without having any gaps on top or on both sides of the video. However, after uploading the video, the gap appeared. If I have the time, I'll find a way to fix that.

This is so far my final outcome of the video. There might be changes though, since the presentation is next week. But hopefully, I can stick with this one ;)

Creating The Video

|Step 1|
The first step is to save the project. I saved my file as Cupcake Video.

|Step 2|
Next I started editing by opening all the images and the Sound files I need and dragged them to the Timeline.

|Step 3|
Then I created a text file by going to Title>New Title>Default Still. I chose default still because I didn't want the text to move.

|Step 4|
Since Flutterby represents Butterfly, I decided to put an animated butterfly to make the video more interesting. I animated the butterfly using Flash. The butterfly Image used is copied from flutterby's logo, then animated.

This is my first attempt to use Flash and the best and quickest way is definitely to Google for Flash Tutorial. I had no idea how to use Flash, so this time I had to follow the step by step tutorial (unlike the Adobe Tutorial where I only followed halfway and got the result I wanted before actually finishing the tutorial).

Animating the Butterfly using Flash

The Outcome

For the Flash Tutorial, click here

|Step 5|
I think my first try using Flash went allright, so I just proceeded to the next stage. I added the animated butterfly on the text and set it to Overlay (to make the text visible while the butterfly animates).

|Step6|
Next I added Video Transitions and changed the Speed/Duration for each Image and text.

Video Transitions

I also Increased the volume for the drumbeat to make certain part of the video more catchy.

Volume Adjustment

|Step7|
I played the video a couple of times to make sure that It's fine. Then I Exported the video. To do this, I go to File>Export>Adobe Media Encoder. I chose this option because I need to compress the video to a smaller size (to fit the web). And again, I managed to get an Adobe Video Tutorial from the internet, which thought me the trick to compress videos while maintaining the pixels. This guide is so simple to follow coz it's a video & audio tutorial.

For the guide, go to http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/premierepro/articles/prp2am_exportmovie/popup.html

Check out my final Video on my next post!

Captions for the Video

Before I begin editing the video, I need to create a storyline to make the video more interesting. This way, I'll know which picture to put. Here are the captions:

|First Phase|
It’s really not difficult to make people smile
Crack a joke
Bake some cookies
Or even by simply smiling at them

|Second Phase|
Want to know a better way?
Give them a cupcake!

|Third Phase|
Make your love ones HAPPY
Make your guests smile
Make your occasions worth remembering

|Fourth Phase|
Flutterby Cupcakes
The perfect gift for all occasion..

|Fifth Phase|
We can make your guests jump with joy!

|Sixth Phase|
Log on to www.flutterbycupcakes.blogspot.com
Or contact Ms. Kayla at 016-3020644

Now that the captions are done, I can start editing the video and suite the caption with the Audio.

Wish me Luck!

Materials for Video

Before creating the video, I need to gather materials to be inserted in the video. Since this project's requirements is to only use still images, I managed to get some interesting pictures that's related to the video.

Instead of putting only cupcake images, I decided to put Happy Faces to suite the happy theme. Here are some of the pictures:

Videos I Like

Check out these videos! I like the music. It blends with the video =) I hope I can make something like these 2 videos:

Cadbury Truck Commercial


Ferrero Rocher - Dazzle

I'm still looking around and trying to figure out my concept. In the mean time, I'll look for more commercials to get more ideas.

Enough with the Poster, Lets get on with the Video!

Previously, I planned to create a video based on classical English look (with English music). Then I thought, why not create something light and fun? So instead of using English music for the video, I plan to use the evergreen song by The Turtles, Happy Together. It's fun, creates a Happy mood and it's catchy too! If we create a happy feeling, of course people will remember it ;)

Here's a preview of the song:

I'm still at the first stage - gathering Information. I plan to start with my video somewhere around next week. I need to gather more info., familiarize with the software and try to learn flash (to animate some images). But flash isn't important for this project, so I don't wanna go into that too deeply. I'm focusing more on Adobe Premiere Pro.

What have i Learned?

|Review of the Poster|
While creating the poster, I started using more shortcuts than I ever did. Shortcuts helped to speed up my work and saved loads of my time!

I also learned to create the 'Soft Focus' or 'Glossy' effect. Although I didn't do the whole process, I was able to create my own glossy effect. And that was very satisfying ;)

I haven't done poster design for quite some time. Thought I wouldn't be that difficult since I used to play around with Adobe Photoshop. But I was clearly wrong. It took me some time to remember the shortcuts and tools. So next time if there's a project, I'll have to start doing wayyyyyyyyy earlier.

The most difficult part isn't doing the poster, but transferring my tacit knowledge. Being a KM student, I know I have to try my very best to share what I know. But it ain't that easy. We often plan on something and know why we do it (in our head), but to share with others why we do this and that, it's rather difficult. But I did my best to share what I know =)

I have to admit, if we didn't have to create a blog, I might not learn as much. Why? Coz I might just do things and don't even bother to share or to explain why I did that. At the end of the day, I might not remember what I did and might not be able to create the same effects (in Phtoshop) again. And I call myself a KM student? Haha. Well, I'm still learning ;) But knowledge sharing has always been my culture..

=D I'm happy coz one work is done!

Creating the poster

The first thing to do is to choose the right picture. I spend quite some time choosing the best picture (like choosing a model for a TV ad). There are loads of themes and colours. I decided to go with the red and white coz it's simple and nice. Not too colourful as well.

Unedited cupcake image

| Step 1 |
Before designing the poster, i set the image to:

1. CMYK colour (which is mainly for printing)
2. Resolution 300
3. Size: 29.7cm x 42cm (A3)

| Step 2 |

I opened the image in Photoshop CS2

| Step 3 |

Since I wanted my image to look glossy and dream-like, i searched for 'Photoshop Tutorial' for glossy effect and came across something called 'Surreal Soft Focus Effect'. I followed through some of the step by step process and got a satisfying outcome. The trick is the more you try, the better outcome you'll get. My outcome was different than the effect in the tutorial coz I played around with it a lil bit.

First I make a duplicate layer of the cupcake image (Hit Crtl+J) and change the name to 'Blur' . Then go to Filter - Blur - Gaussion Blur.

Gaussion Blur Effect

Then set the layer mode to Overlay. To get the desired Glossy effect, I duplicated the 'Blur' layer a few times to make it more 'dream-like'. There are a few more steps to complete the 'Surreal Soft Focus Effect', but I stop here coz this is exactly what I wanted.

Glossy Cupcake Image

Tadaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

To view the Photoshop Tutorial, go to http://freephotoshopguides.com/. For the full 'Surreal Soft Focus Effect', click here.

| Step 4 |
It's now time to add some lighting. And as usual, I'll create a duplicated layer instead of using the original one (in case if I mess up).

Adjusting the lighting


The 'Soft Omni' light effect

Somehow I dont like the lighting effect. I need something light and tasty. Something that gives the dreamy-fantasy-cupcake-world look. So I'm gonna stick with just the Glossy effect.

| Step 5 |
I created another layer and make the Fill brown. This will be the background colour of my poster. Then I cropped the cupcake image and place it on the brown background.

Cropped Image on brown background

| Step 6 |

Next I added text. I chose pink text over brown background because pink is a light colour and it stands out on dark colours such as brown. In my opinion, pink and brown makes the poster look yummy! It suits the product.

According to my experience working in a web publishing department, there should not be more than 2 types of font in a design. So I decided to use just one font for the whole description. I chose 'Century Gothic' coz it's simple and it's easy to read.

Every text in the poster is double-layered (linked together) to make it sharper and stronger. With just one layer, the texts are dull.

Text added describing the product & service

| Step 7 |
If you notice, there's a few flower images that has a a watermark effect on the poster. For that, I pasted a vector image from Flutterby's business card (the raw material given by Kayla) and set the blending mode to 'screen' with 6% fill. I did that to make the poster looks filled but not too busy.

| Step 8 |
I added up Flutterby's cupcake logo and recreate the font similar to the original logo (the logo pasted will not have a sharp text). The font used for the logo is Bickham Script Pro (90pt) - double layered.

Logo without text

Logo with text

| Step 8 |

To make it more interesting, I re-create a vector graphic from Adobe Illustrator CS2. The reason for me to re-create (although I have all of Kayla's raw materials) is because Kayla did the whole design in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and created an outline (to print the image). I was unable to paste it in Adobe Photoshop due to 2 reasons :

1. The file was created in CS3 (It says that I will loose some data if open in CS2).
2. Outline was created.

So instead of installing Adobe Illustrator CS3, i decided to have a lil fun with Adobe Illustrator CS2. I used the pen tool to trace the image.

Tracing process using 'Pen' tool in Illustrator

Then I copied the image and paste it to Adobe Photoshop. The vector image was resized (using the transform tool) by going to Edit - Transform - Scale / Rotate. I hit Crtl+T for the shortcut. When I'm happy with it, I rename the layer as 'Curve'. I also added some small butterfly images (from Kayla's raw material) to make it more attractive.

Tracing outcome

| Step 9 |

For final touch, I changed the 'Blending Options' of the texts, adding a couple of effects such as 'Drop Shadow', 'Outer Glow' and 'Inner Glow'. This should give some weight to the texts making it more attractive.

'Blending Options' Effects

| Final Outcome |

There you Go!

Since I set the image to CMYK (mainly for printing), the colour isn't that accurate on the web. Anyway, I can say that I am 98% confident that there will be no changes for the poster. However, nothing is fixed untill the final submission.

Now I can move on with the video! =)

My current progress (Poster)

|Checklist|
I am focusing more on my poster design for the mean time (later on, I'll start on video). So far, I've done the first phase. Here's my checklist:

1. Survey on products and services
2. Decision : Product as well as service - Flutterby Cupcakes
3. Gather materials (Pictures, Logo, Information)
4. Planning on content (Theme, Tagline, Look & Feel, Colour, Information,etc.)
5. Start building the poster (A3 size) - Photoshop (with some help from Illustrator for vector images)

[ Red = Done ]
[ Blue = WIP ]

|Content Development|
My initial plan was to do something classy and elegant (where I planned to put classical english music for the video). But looking at the colourful logo, I think I'm gonna go with something light and yummy! To do this, the most important thing is the colour blend to give the right 'Look & Feel'.

• Theme : Light & Fun
• Tagline : 'The perfect gift for all occasion..'
• Look & Feel : Chocolate & Marshmallow
• Colour Blend : Dark brown, Pink & White
• Information :
• Company / Product name
  
• Types of occassions (Weddings, Showers, Birthdays & etc.)
• Contact Number

It's easier to create a design after knowing all the details. Now that I have most of the things organized, it's time to start the fun! Yeeeehaaaaaa! I've been waiting for this part ;)

Flutterby's Second Logo

Flutterby's Second Logo

Flutterby has 2 logo's. One goes on the business card. The other logo is for any other use. For this assignment, I chose the second logo because it symbolizes the product more. Here's what I think:

1. The little cupcake let us know the product just by looking at it.
2. The butterfly image symbolizes the name - Flutterby (Jsut the fcat taht you can atllacuy raed tihs psot porves taht fcat)

Student's Block?

Ever heard of writer's block? I'm facing a rather similar process i call 'Student's Block'.

Writer's block is a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to begin or continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity.
<-- That's my problem!

Urmmmm HELP? I have some ideas, but i can't seem to transfer it due to a phenomenon called 'Koo~Koo In The Head'

------------------------------------------------------------

| The Poster |

I have the raw materials from Kayla, which is the Flutterby's logo. It's a .ai (Adobe Illustrator) file of the logo. She gave me the permission to make use of it in any way i want (as long as it's for the purpose of the assignment). In any way i want meaning that i can re-arrange the logo to better suit my design/concept.

Flutterby's Official Logo

Since this project focuses solely on Adobe Photoshop, I can use the logo given by Kayla and insert it in my poster. The .ai file allows me to change each and every bit of the elements in the design such as the strokes, the flower position, the butterfly position and even the colours. I can change it because the image wasn't flattened or converted into a Jpeg file.

This is the rough example just to give u a better understanding of what i meant


Flutterby's Edited Logo

| The Video |

For the Video, I plan to have something catchy like a catchy Scottish / English background music. I think that cupcakes, cookies and muffins was started off by the English during their 'Tea-Time'. So it would be nice to suit the tradition. But this is just a plan, nothing fixed yet. I have to search for the suitable music. Then try to put in some pictures in Adobe Premier Pro and add in the music. See if it goes.

Anyone have any Scottish music, feel free to pass it to me! :D

Owh and don't forget to check out the chat box i inserted recently from Xat.com.

It's kinda fun and quite cool too. You can choose any templates provided or make your own. I changed mine to Flutterby's cupcakes. Feel free to chat and give your feedback on my ideas ;)

TTFN!

Flutterby's Cupcakes

These are the pictures (unedited) of the Cupcakes I collected from Kayla!

The pictures gave me some ideas on the 'Tag line' of my poster. But ideas are still running through my head. Nothing fixed. I need a tag line that best fit the purpose of my product. Something relevant to the product that can attract buyers & get recognized.

I like NIKE's Tag Line (Just Do It). It's light, simple but gives us confidence. Need to survey more. Maybe something that sounds right and perfect.

For now, here are some options:

1. 'The Perfect Gift' <- Too short?
2. 'The Perfect Gift For The Perfect Occasion' <- Not bad
3. 'The Best Cupcake in Town' <- That's a little lame. Its too Kopitiam (The best White Coffee in town). Haha.

Well, I'm too sleepy to think of more. Its late, might as well do it tomorrow.

!! The Tragedy !!

Last Thursday, I went over to Kayla's (Hazlila) house around noon to get the pictures of her cupcakes. I spent some time there, collecting all the pictures for different occasions and themes. Most of the cupcakes are for birthdays. And the best theme i saw so far was ROCK. Interesting, ey?

I head straight to class after gathering all my info, feeling on top of the world. Got home after that, turned my laptop on and connected my portable hard disk to my laptop (With my owh-so-happy-mood), planning to update my blog with the latest pictures / raw materials which I gathered that afternoon .

!&@^#%^!&@*&@^!^%#$%@!^%@^%! Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrghhhhhhhhh!!!!!

All the pictures wasn't in my hard disk! Can you believe how careless people can be? I actually created a folder on her Desktop and did not drag and drop the folder on to my hard disk. I guess because I haven't used MAC in a while (besides messing around with Aien's Laptop) and I was trying to remember how to use it till I actually forgot to drag it to my hard disk.

Gosh, thats was a sad sad sad sad sad sad moment for me.. ='(

The good news is, I managed to get the pictures again today. Yeayyy!

Ideas. Ideas. Ideas. They don't come easily, do they?

After a few head-cracking hours, i finally decided on a product. Hoorayyyy!!!

I think doing the poster might not be as hard as figuring out what to do / finding the concept of what i tend to do.

The Product: Cupcakes!

My friend just started a medium-sized cupcake business which i find very very interesting. Plus cupcakes are great for all occasions such as Birthdays, New years, Eid, Chinese New Year, Christmas, Valentines Day, Mother's Day, Weddings and even as a simple gift.

The great thing about it is that it is custom made according to what we like such as a RED theme for Valentines Day or a COLOURFUL theme for Birthdays including texts such as 'Happy Birthday Eza' and loads more. It's definitely suitable for all ages!

Business Name: Flutterby

Founder: Ms. Hazlila Harumaini (Kayla)

Since the purpose of this project is mainly to explore the tools and to figure out the best way to represent our idea/tacit knowledge, I will not be concentrating much on the product but on the process of creating the Poster and the Video instead.

In other words, it's more to 'Behind The Scenes'

I set an appointment with my friend this Thursday (8th May 2008) and she is more than willing to co-operate. Well, what are friends for ;)

So hopefully,

1. I will be able to get the pictures of her Cupcakes by this Thursday
2. I can start drafting my ideas and concept
3. I can stick with this plan

In the mean time, I changed my template to give a better look & feel to my topic. But of course, some adjustments have been made (by editing the HTML basic codes) where I increased the width of the Header & Body. This step really isn't necessary, but I'm just excited since this is my first blog. Here's roughly how I did it:




Anyone interested in the templates? Visit http://www.pyzam.com/bloggertemplates/tags. They have tonssssssss of cool templates!

Cheerio! =)

The Introduction

Okay, since I skipped this earlier, let me get on with it.

My main objective is to create a poster (of A3 size) as well as a video (with images) of a particular product / service. The main point is to create awareness (not just to advertise) and to get recognized plus to explore the tools in Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Adobe Premiere.

The scary part --> The video will be posted on Youtube!

The difficult part --> Posting every teeny weeny processes & ideas on this blog (Warghhh!!)

The tough part --> Deciding on what to do (Gosh that's difficult)

Obviously, i haven't fixed any products or services yet (Students = Last minutes. Haha!), but i plan to by the end of this week. Okay, not plan but MUST!

So here's what I'm gonna do:

1. Choose a company
2. Why do I choose it? (What's interesting/attracting about it)
   
3. Find out the target audience
4. What kind of commercial will it be? Infomercial? or just plain commercial?
5. The concept of my assignment

Well, that's all for a start. Need to go step by step. So I'll update soon.

Cheers!

The Beginning

First time blogging.. Yeehaaaaaa!

I don't fancy blogs and that is the main reason why I've never created one before. But I guess i might change my view later on coz blogging doesn't seem so bad after all. Just have to transfer my thoughts through my fingers and type them ;) Hehe. Sounds pretty simple to me [Yeah Rite!]

Since this is my very first time, I'll skip the introduction and the objective for now. Will have to do a long one later.

I have to admit, blogging all my thoughts seems like The Ending instead of The Beginning to me. I hope I can do this [At least till I complete my project]. Gambatteeeeee!