Black Eyed Peas – Pump It

I felt that my presentation was very successful, from the feedback provided from the rest of the class I could see I was very confident in presenting. I did not read from the presentation but went into detail about the points I was making. I also had good content, and went into a good level of analysis of the conventions from the music video.

I did not pick up on all the intertextuality of the music video and failed to see how it related to movies and other works in media.

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Here is he review of the game

Above is the final product of our efforts.

From our final trailer, the outcome was exactly as we expected, the music choice really works with this genre of game. From the character information sheets introducing some of the characters you interact with in the game, to the large explosion at the end of the thriller, everything really fits together to make it look like a professional, realistic game trailer.

We could perhaps improve this trailer by removing the GUI from the game, making the footage look like part of a game movie rather than actual game play. We could also make the fact files on each of the characters move, like someone was typing in letters with enough resources.

In regards to the editing of the commercial, the technical aspects were at a minimum due to the fact that the trailer was simply a string of other clips put together to represent game footage. However there were naturally some complicated technical aspects that we had to deal with. In order to create the end titles in which the text ‘Star: gateway’ appears on a back ground of stars we used an editing software which accompanies final cut express called ‘Live type’. This specific editing programme is designed solely for creating various different styles of titles for films. We choose a plain font for the title Star: Gateway in order to make it look as professional as possible. We then, instead of setting it in a plain colour, made it so that the colour of it was actually a mini video of sky moving which contrasted with the background of what seems like a vortex. We then finished it off with our company name ‘Alteran Games’. This was in more a funky font with a plain background as the game is more aimed at teens and younger adults who would probably be more attracted to a more creative logo.

For the remainder of the editing we worked on a variety of programmes including Final cut express, iMovie, Serif, Livetype and garageband. The reasoning behind this was that each programme has it’s own advantages and disadvantages so we decided to play on each programmes strengths in order to hopefully create a higher quality final product.

We used two different games to grab footage for our game trailer. We used video capture software (screen recorder) on a computer to get the video game X3 to play as a movie and a screen capture to gain images of The Sims to add as characters into our game.

To being the filming process, we went onto The Sims Game on Christina’s Mac and created three Sims, using the Sim Creator tool that is included in the game. These Sims are the portraits of the main NPC characters in our game, the three main characters that the player will interact with while playing to progress throughout the game. We then loaded the screenshots in photo editor software and removed the backgrounds, added a new black background and added the appropriate text so it appeared to be a “file” on their record, giving really basic information while not revealing anything that may ruin game play for the player. They could then be added into the video at the editing stage.

Next we loaded up the game and started recording basic footage that followed the lines of our storyboard; this was quite difficult as the game did not entirely match out our story line. So we used a cheat system to generate the appropriate amount of space ships and the correct battle conditions. Using the screen recorder software, we took several clips from the game from ships fighting in space, and most importantly, a large explosion for the end of the trailer. After we successfully captured the footage from the game, it was converted from AVI format to a single MP4 movie ready for separating and editing.

The main part of our footage for Star: Gateway is original footage from two well-known games; Sims and X³.  X³ is a space trading and combat game developed by Egosoft for Windows and Sims is  a strategic, life-stimulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts.

The X-Series – with the slogan “Trade Fight Build Think” – is often noted for providing a large amount of player freedom, and promoting open-ended play. In X³, the player spends the most time in control of a ship, doing tasks of their own choosing. Different ships are available for various tasks – there are small, fast scouting ships; freighters; powerful battleships; and massive carriers for moving a fleet. Most ships seen in the game can be bought or captured, and flown by the player. The player is free to go anywhere in the X-Universe at any time; to explore, to complete plot-related goals, or to fulfill their own personal goals. The Sims had sold more than 6.3 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling PC game in history; the game has shipped 16 million copies worldwide as of February 2005. Since its initial release, seven expansion packs and sequels, The Sims 2 and the new prequel The Sims 3, have been released. The Sims has won numerous awards, including GameSpot’s “Game of the Year Award” for 2000.

We chose to base our Game trailer on these two games as we felt they were what we needed, also we like these games. George enjoys playing  X³ and Christina and I enjoy playing The Sims, so we incorporated both games together to make our idea, using the trailers and clips for these to games to make our trailer.

As we wanted to use already existing footage, we needed to write a letter of permission to the gaming company and ownership to ask for their approval to use it, so we didn’t get accused of copyright. The letter we sent to the company is below…

Dear whomever concerned,

We are writing in reference to the copyright allowances surrounding your game ‘The Sims 3.’ As AS Media Studies students, we have being set the task of creating a trailer for our very own, new and original video game. In order to create our trailer, we would very much like it if you would consider giving us permission to use footage from ‘The Sims 3.’

The trailer itself would be uploaded on to Youtube under the public viewing option. It would not be advertised in any way which would increase viewing figures and ‘The Sim’s 3’ and your company would be fully accredited in the trailer description. If there are any other provisions that we could enforce, we would be more than happy to discuss them at a later date. Many thanks.

Yours Sincerely

Alex Helsby, George Miller and Christina Low

The Sims and X³ both relate to our game as X³ invloves space travel and Sims involves character creation. Our game is based on space travelling and wars using weapons but also you create your own character at the beginning of the game. There are 3 main characters which will already be in the game but you can then make yourself to control.

Dear whomever concerned,

We are writing in reference to the copyright allowances surrounding your game ‘The Sims 3.’ As AS Media Studies students, we have being set the task of creating a trailer for our very own, new and original video game. In order to create our trailer, we would very much like it if you would consider giving us permission to use footage from ‘The Sims 3.’

The trailer itself would be uploaded on to Youtube under the public viewing option. It would not be advertised in any way which would increase viewing figures and ‘The Sim’s 3’ and your company would be fully accredited in the trailer description. If there are any other provisions that we could enforce, we would be more than happy to discuss them at a later date. Many thanks.

Yours Sincerely

Alex Helsby, George Miller and Christina Low

Grand Theft Auto 4