As you know, there are hundreds of TV series across hundreds of channels. But very few stand out to be iconic and capture millions of people’s attention. The kind of TV series that rivet people to their seats and for 30-40 or 60 minutes, they lose all sense of the world immediately around them and the religiously tune in the following week to see what happens next. It is these viewer characteristics, that repeated on a grand (even global) scale, that I feel marks the success of a series.

There are a number of TV series that fall under the successful category. Lost, 24, The Simpsons etc. However out of these tv series, very few capture my imagination and feed me such positive (and sometimes emotional) energy that I don’t want them to end. If Family Guy or the Simpsons ended tomorrow… yes it would be a shame, but I would soon move onto different things.

However, another TV series has been added to my list of programs I would mind if they ended. The new Doctor Who has just come to a close of series 6 and actually inspired me to write this post. Doctor who has been given a new lease of life and my god, have they done it justice. Each episode has new twists and turns and new ways of splitting the logical theory of time into millions of pieces. It is a TV show that has made it to my list of programs I wish never ended, which is strange because, I haven’t seen all of the episodes (less than half probably). I do however keep on track with what happens and follow the underlying storyline, and it never ceases to amaze me with what the scriptwriters can come up with.

Perhaps it is just a short term euphoria caused by watching an end to a great series, but I am pretty sure a lot of people out there may feel the same way about this iconic show. However, all good things must at some point come to an end and here lies the problem. How do you end a great series? Keep going and let it die out as viewing figures drop below a certain point? End it whilst it is still good (some magical point before the viewing figures drop) and leave people wanting more? It is difficult and I am sure many directors, and producers have asked the question.

If you want my opinion (which I am going to give you anyway), a TV show that ended the right way for me was the recent Battle Star Galactica. BSG ran for only 4 seasons over 5 years, but each episode had me glued to my screen. Whilst I didn’t watch it when it first aired, that didn’t stop me from not wanting it to end. I knew I had only four seasons and 73 episodes, and I would watch several episodes in a row. Every time I started another episode I was getting closer to the end with a feeling deep down inside that was both happy and sad. I would be happy if they had continued the series to this day, but I know that things must come to an end at some point. Shows like BSG are expensive to produce and time consuming and at some point it would be difficult to gain funding, despite it being such a popular series. Not only that, but the storyline changes and develops, and you have to be mindful of how it develops, as you do not want it to stray too far from what people would want.

I would love to tell you the ending, but for those of you who have not yet watched it or not seen it from start to finish I would recommend you find yourself the box set of all four seasons, especially if you like sci-fi. For those of you who have watched it, I think you would agree that the show couldn’t of had a better ending. It was truly a beautiful ending, one that brought tears of sadness and joy (yes ok… I have been known to cry at emotional films and videos, we all have secretly).

So there you have it, a little dedication to the shows out there that capture us and take us out of our minds for an hour or so. I’d like to know what you thought of it, do you agree or do you think I am just writing rubbish? Comments on the subject are welcome, as well as other examples of TV shows that have captured and tortured you into viewing submission.

Please excuse the long delay between this post and last, I have been a tad busy… Actually busy is a bit of an understatement. There is no words available in the English language that can describe the amount of work I have done this year for university, especially in the last couple of weeks.

I have been spending the last couple of months working on my dissertation as well as my major project for my third and final year at Bournemouth University. For those of you who are interested in new technologies (I am specifically talking about Augmented Reality here) then go check out my major project here. In summary, AR Battle Cards is an augmented reality version of the classic Top Trump statistic card game.

As of this evening, I have completed all of the requirements for my third and final year at university. All I have left to do is bind both printed copies of my Production Analysis and hand them in tomorrow. Then all that is left to do is set up my project at the exhibition (23rd-26th of May – Linky for details) and demonstrate the fruits of my labour. If you are in the Bournemouth area, it would be awesome if you could drop by for a couple of hours.

I won’t celebrate just yet but it is a great feeling to be able to sit back and know that everything has been done. No more deadlines, no more planning on what needs to be done, no more bugs to squash (except for the real ones that run across your desk when your trying to type  FDHG&Y$Y^$%Y$%YSGFG – got the bugger…)

So… I can finally sit back, relax and download and play a game of Portal 2… (I have been good and resisted the urge to purchase it for fear of being completely absorbed in it)

At least I have been able to accomplish something in life… University… Check… just a thousand other things to do before I kick the bucket.

If you will excuse me… Portal 2 has finished downloading… See you in several days

Ok, I have had some valuable feedback from people in regards to my first idea for my major project (linky here). The majority of the idea is based in the Unity 3D gaming engine. Now I am lucky to have an expert in Unity3D as a course demonstrator (Will Goldstone – author of Unity Game Development Essentials) who spent a couple of minutes of his time giving me valuable feedback on what I should think about when creating a game. He also suggested that I plan out a few more ideas as I may find an idea that is better.

Well, I didn’t think I would have a better idea than that one but it did get me thinking. It just so happens that one night I was laying in bed, unable to get to sleep, one of these “possibly better” ideas came to me. I begun to think about the amazing videos from freddie wong (youtube linky) and his work that he has also done with Corridor-Digital (linky to a great short film). His work has given me inspiration and has re-kindled my love for video (I used to shoot lots of little things as a kid). Along with my current work placement that heavily involves video work, I wanted to create a short film (30 – 40 minutes or so) in a similar style as it involves action, guns and lots of fun in after effects. However, I was wondering how I could turn it into an interactive project.

Then it hit me. I thought about my attempts at doing something similar during my first year for the narratives project that featured different timelines based on a series of events. I then realised that I could turn the movie into an interactive film. Throughout the film there will be points where the user can choose paths or do a series of challenges and a different video will play depending on their actions.

For example: A spec ops team are planning to break into a complex. Do they:
A. Go in by the roof
or
B. Go in through the ground floor doors

Lets say the viewer picks video A, and so a video will play showing the spec ops team reaching a downstairs door. They realise that the door is locked and so they use a snake cam to look under the door. Seeing it is an empty room they turn their attention to the key code lock. One member pulls out a gadget, hooks it into the lock and starts a hacking attempt. Time will stop or slow, then the viewer is presented with an interactive digram of the lock circuitry (most probably will require a custom made flash player to handle interactivity). Depending on whether they pick the lock successfully or not will either show a video of them entering in the building undetected, or set off all the alarms.

So… This idea put simply is a interactive short film with multiple timelines and paths. I will create a website that is built specially for the movie that will host blogs and twitter feeds, behind the scenes footage, how-to videos, effect composites (show the original footage and the edited version side by side), downloads and more.

My mind wouldn’t go to sleep so I wrote down all the ideas and got them out of my head. Other possibilities could include multi camera environments that allowed the viewer to jump from person to person and inventory style pickups along the way (say people find ammo mags on the floor that determine later on whether someone can kill using a gun or knife etc.)

I also noted down some advantages and disadvantages to this idea:

Advantages:

- Video is more an area that I enjoy and would like to continue (might have better use in the work environment)
- It would be more within my technical abilities (I am better with video editing than coding for Unity) – It involves collaboration with other people (script writers tv prod. crew etc)
- Unlike unity, there are a huge amount of tutorials and materials available to assist with the production
- Greater chance of having better looks / aesthetics
- Uses a larger number of skills (flash coding, website creation, editing, filming, producing, scriptwriting etc)
- Could use a shorter video (or a teaser) for the Minor Project

Disadvantages:

- It is a large amount of work (rivalling the unity idea)
- 30 minutes of film might require 1hr+ of extra material for all the other paths in the timeline
- It requires a huge amount of planning (I like “just getting on with it”)
- Runs the risk of becoming too much like a group project (I am unsure of the guidelines so I will have to check this before I continue)
- Could end up costing a fair amount (filming costs money – for props, actors expenses and the like)
- Filming can be very time consuming

So there you have it… My second idea for the major project… All comments are welcome, as are tips and ideas. Constructive criticism is also welcomed, and I would appreciate two minutes of your time if you can spare a thought.

Yup I am back again… It has been a while since I last put something on here, but that is because I have a job now… A miracle I know, however it only lasts the summer. It would be nice however to continue throughout next year with a day here and there to help with University funding…

Anyway enough about that, the real reason I am writing this post is that I am wanting to type out an initial idea I have for my major project for my third and final year at uni. So below I have typed out all the ideas that I have jotted down on paper. I will then be going around and asking people for their opinion on whether it would be a good route to go down. If I get a large amount of positive feedback, then I shall develop this idea further… If not, then I shall continue on and hunt for another idea to present to the masses.

So without much further ado, below is my idea, let me know what you think in the comments/on twitter/etc

Unity 3D Game

Title Ideas:

• - Mine Millions
• - Million Miner
• - Power Miner

Inspiration Sources:

• - Mine a Million Board Game
  (aka The Business Game)
  Owned by Waddingtons
• - Transport Tycoon
  Owned by Chris Sawyer + MicroProse

Idea:

To create a 3D business simulation game based loosely on Mine a Million and Transport Tycoon. A player will start with a single mine and they have to transport ore to a number of locations, using vehicles and boats, which is then sold to make money. As the game progresses, more transport options will be available, and more locations in which to sell ore. The game will continuously change and provide challenges which the player has to overcome.

Aim:

To make £1 million in the quickest time

Possible Features to Include:

• - Can sell the ore at the mine cheaply as a means of quick money (useful for when people have little money to pay for transport)
• - Start off with one location to sell at, and others will become available over time
• - Ore Prices will rise and fall over time at each location (requires strategic skills)
• - The amount of ore produced at mine fluctuates over time
• - Player starts off with access to one vehicle (truck) and more will become available to buy over time (trains/barges/container ships)
• - Upgrades to vehicles can be purchased (increase speed/capacity/efficiency)
• - Transports and locations can be subject to events that change value and outcomes (fire/flood/breakdowns/stolen goods etc) – adds an element of chance
• - Other method of increasing mine production can be awarded/purchased (second mine head/more workers etc)

Other Possibilities

• - Make the game multiplayer capable, so people can race to make the money first
• - Feature cut-scenes and live video which highlights certain events
• - The game can be connected to a website and server, to allow score submission and assets storage
• - Create an online shop which allows people to purchase addons/extras

So there you have it. Its just one idea (the only one at the moment) I have for my major project next year. As I have said, I would love to know what you think. Whether its simply saying you would or wouldn’t play a game like this or you write an essay providing lots of other cool ideas and possibilities to add, I don’t mind.

The game would be made using the Unity 3D engine, so I have a number of formats I could produce this on. Would you like it as a downloadable program for win and mac, a web based game (like those flash games on various websites) or even possibly an iPhone game. Let me know what platform you would prefer.

Thanks all! I look forward to your comments

As of Thursday 10th June I have been free of all university deadlines and requirements. Not having to worry about essays or projects is a bit of a relief because it means that I can tie up any loose ends that I always seem to acquire. So since Thursday I have been doing a mix of relaxing, finishing off client projects, and sorting out family affairs (of which there have been many). My to-do list is all but cleared up and I have managed to clean up my desk back to its original clutter free state. I dislike mess… the only place that is clean at the moment is my bedroom (the rest of the house is in a state as always, but I have little control over that).

So my plans for the summer now that Uni is over? The majority of the holiday will be filled with the need to work, both for the work placement and for various family members and other clients. In order for me to survive the final year, I am going to have to work for money. Hopefully I can get enough to at least take a chunk out of the loan that I am having to take out. Other than work, play will have to be squeezed in too. For play, I have recently found the wonders of Steam (I know your thinking its been out for ages – but I am not a huge gamer). But most likely I will be working on a personal project. What that involves exactly I am not sure, but it will hopefully consist of design and coding in some form (and hopefully video too). A website, unity game and video perhaps?? – Any ideas? Hopefully I could also engineer it so it will compliment minor and major projects in my 3rd year at uni… you know start early and all that….

Reflecting back, I believe this year of uni has been brilliant as I have learnt a huge amount. Whether I learnt more this year compared to last is debatable. If anything I have considerably improved my skills since then. In terms of coding, particularly in relation to the station project, I have been able to code fairly complicated (for me anyway) PHP scripts, with little help from tutorials and friends, which is a big plus. Infact, I have become one of the go-to guys when people need help (it can get a little annoying at times though when I spend a while assisting and I don’t get a thanks in return.)

So

work for money + play + move house (again) + personal project / Time = My summer

As part of the second year for my university course, I have to find a placement with a media company for 6 weeks. My portfolio is now presentable and deemed worthy of employer consumption. Using a fantastic post from Meetdraw (linky) I collected a list of names of the various companies that work in the South East. After researching each company in depth I sent off personalised cover emails to each company along with a CV and links to this portfolio website.

Well after about two weeks of waiting after I sent a batch of emails off, I received only two replies… I thought this was a little disappointing, particularly as these are media companies that are supposed to be hot on customer interaction and gain most of their business through email. Whether they could not be bothered to reply, deleted the email or just never received it, I won’t know for sure, but I am to start calling around and following them up in the next few days and hopefully I will get a better response…

…Wish me luck, every extremity on my body is crossed

I can finally sit back and look at my portfolio page and say that it is ready for public consumption. I have completely rebuilt my website bringing it up to date. This is the result… So feel free to look around.

It started a couple of weeks ago. I decided that if I were to make a good impression to possible employers, I needed to improve my website. I first envisioned that I would simply add my latest work to my portfolio page and theme the blog to match the rest of the website. So one evening I sat down an looked into a number of tutorials to help me with the mighty task of creating a theme for my WordPress blog installation. I followed the fantastic “WordPress for Designers” screencast series by the talented Drew Douglass (Linky: Drew Douglass on Themeforest.net) to help me understand the basics of how to build a theme for WordPress. He starts getting into breaking down a .PSD file at around day 10, but for some reason he doesn’t finish it all. Not to worry, I then knew enough of the basics so I could theme the rest myself.

After watching a couple of days, I realised that I would be better if I simply rebuilt my entire website in WordPress. I decided to do this because I felt it would be easier to maintain, keep up to date and use all of the great features that it provides on the whole of my website, not just the blog. As I was looking at my .PSD file of my theme ready to break down I though, you know what, sod it… Lets redesign that too!

So a day later, and with a new improved, more web 2.0 looking theme I started to theme and build the entire website in WordPress.

Long story short, multiple hours and days passed with mistakes made and learnt, cursing and shouting at my laptop to work when I want it to, I have finished. At least for the moment. My main aim was to finish the website with similar amounts of work as available on my old website. Now that is completed I can send out my CVs to possible employers to try and find a work placement. The next steps over the coming month, is to organise my work collection, grouping together any other photography and artwork that is worthy to put on separate pages in my portfolio. This will add to my current collection of websites.

So… I, Matthew Shield, declare “M Shield 2.0 Online Portfolio”… Open!

Please be gentle with it, despite me checking every corner and hole for bugs and broken links, there’s bound to be one still left.

So for the moment I am done…. But I am no where near finished.

Old Website:

New Website:

So with a new laptop and a fresh slate I am slowly clearing up all the folders and organising myself. (Spring is here after all, might as well do a bit of spring cleaning)

Along with cleaning up my laptop, I will clean up my website a bit too… I will be refreshing my portfolio with more recent (and more pretty) work that is much better than the work that is up there currently. Along with that, I will be changing this blog theme to match the rest of the website (I am sure some of you wondered why it looked odd in comparison).

Other than that, the essay for my media options has been finished. Went pretty well but I wish I had spent a bit more time looking for some more solid theory… Not easy finding theory for documentary though.

I had a pitch session as part of the university course. Was definitely interesting teaming up with TV production and scriptwriter courses again. We had to make a company and do a theoretical pitch to a big company over a particular event. We went for TOPSHOP and created a theoretical event that could take place in London and New York, with a competition on which city could dress up a theoretical model best. The theoretical winners could then win theoretical TOPSHOP clothes. The event would be held on a theoretical stage with large theoretical LED screens in Times Square and Trafalgar Square. We had a theoretical budget of £100,000 too!

Ok enough of the theoretical crap, you get the point. But yea, interesting event and gives insight on how best to approach a company and pitch yourself to them… Now all that I need to do is sort out my placement for this year

Anyone fancy giving me a 6 week job placement? Preferably paid but I am not fussy

Anybody???

Thought not….

Over the course of the day I have noted a couple of issues that I have come across that I will highlight here. First of all is the serious lack of productivity. It’s not me being lazy but after being used to having two monitors with large resolutions the screen reel estate is far to small to be of use on a regular basis. Browsing websites takes considerably longer to do and there is the constant need to scroll on websites that are not mobile efficient, (kinda gives me the drive to make more mobile friendly versions of the websites I make) and opening multiple tabs, though is possible, just is not efficient with the screen size.

Another reason for the lack of productivity (other than me being lazy) is the insufficient multitasking capabilities. Now I have jailbroken my iPhone (I am an advanced user remember) so I have multitasking and the ability to quickly switch between apps with a swipe or two. However even with this ability it’s very difficult to keep track of events and in particular chats on clients that don’t have sound notifications (skype).

So productivity aside what other problems have I discovered? The lack of media or lacking the ability to play media. The lack of flash is highly annoying. I have seen many links from Twitter and through IMs to videos that I cannot view due to iPhones lack of flash. In addition to this, I find it shocking how many websites that rely on flash to show work or items do not have an alternative content. Huge gaps with small ‘no flash’ icons fill pages because designers have not provided alternative content such as an image or text saying flash is required. But HTML5 will solve all the problems. No it won’t, not yet anyway. It will take a number of years before HTML5 will provide a mobile experience similar to that on a desktop. Apple get your shizzle together, stop being control freaks and give iPhone users what they are asking for… Flash! We are asking for it. We don’t care if it’s slightly buggy we don’t care if it drains battery life, we don’t expect battery life to be good on smartphones so just make us happy. Which is a strange twist from battery life being an important factor on phones in the past. How about this for an idea Apple. Add an on/off switch to allow people to keep it switched off. Best of both worlds? Adobe, if you want to piss Apple off for banning flash, how about you give flash to the jailbroken community? Just a thought.

Returning to the subject of media (I know I tend to drift off topic) I have found out that I cannot play videos or music whilst in a skype call. For someone who spends most of the day in a skype call, this is a big thing. Now whether it’s down to the skype app or the limitations of sharing of audio driver/resources I don’t know but it stops me from watching videos and playing music. One of my favourite pastimes is having a skype call with others whilst streaming media such as a film to the other parties and watching it together without geographic limitations.

These are just a few things I have noticed during the course of the day. Tomorrow I will see if I can find some workarounds for the skype issue but ultimately it’s not been as bad as I thought. I have cleaned my desk which badly needed cleaning, my room is tidy once more and I have cleaned up my mile long todo list, removing items that have been on there for months. But for now I will put my iPhone on charge for the second time today ready to be destroyed tomorrow.

I have to live my life off of my iPhone for the next couple of days trying to get on with life as normal as my MacBook is off at the Apple store awaiting repair.

For those of you who want to know, I currently own a late 2008 unibody Macbook Pro. A purchase I thought would be a good investment to compliment my life at university and first years of work in general. Purchased in October 08 and being completely new to the ‘Apple experience’ I decided that I will start with a clean slate and set myself up for the following couple of years that I will own it. Boy did I have it coming to me.

In the first 6 months everything was going well. I got used to the OSX very quickly and being an ‘advanced user’ I started tweaking and fiddling, altering the system, it’s behaviour and adding new programs to make my life easier and my experience even better. Then the poo poo hit the fan. As I was working hard to complete a deadline for university my laptop display decided to give up the ghost. Within 6 months a hardware fault occured. So external display kept me going for a month before I could spare the time to fix it. After much hassle, countless trips to service centres raised stress levels and falling respect for Apple I finally got my life (sorry laptop) back. A logic board, display and airport card later I was back doing what I normally do.

Did it end there? No it didn’t. I will summerise all the problems to save time for the last few people who can be bothered to read this but this laptop has an overheating issue, display flicker issue, USB audio problem, and now to top it all off the ‘super’ drive is up poo poo creak without a paddle.

So much for ‘it just works’. Ok rant over. For those of you that are still with me I congratulate you and thank you.

So what to do? I have unwillingly been set the task of living my life from my iPhone. Everything I do on my mac I have to somehow replicate it on my iPhone or through other means as I do not have another laptop and no money to buy a temporary one.

I can kiss goodbye my iPhone battery whilst I try to remain as productive as possible. Heck I may even get some jobs that have gathered dust on the bottom of my todo list done!

So to round up. I will live the next couple of days from my iPhone and I will report back on my blog how I get on with various obstacles I encounter and the solutions.

Me hooked on technology and my laptop too much you say? Definately :/