appling for jobs: CV

Lewis Fowler 37 Coombe Avenue Weymouth, Dorset, DT4 7TR  Home: (01305 775158 Fowler128@hotmail.com	College Student in BTEC Interactive Media
	·                      Focused, independent and hardworking college student in BTEC Interactive Media level 3 ·                      Advanced skills in applications such as (MS Office, Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, GL Basic, Dreamweaver,); demonstrated ability to learn new computer programs quickly. ·                      Intermediate-expert communication skills. I have demonstrated theses skills in PowerPoint presentations in various points within my education ·                      Reputation for dependability, honest and enthusiastic. Have completed various tasks and have exceeded expectations on many occasions
	Experience
	Assistant Grounds man ·                      21/04/08- 06/05/2008, Dorset Works Organization Cut grass, operated a roller machine for cricket pitches, line marking, setting up goal posts and cleaning Key Accomplishments: ·                      Exceeded employers expectations when under a very strict amount of time. ·                      Willingness to complete any task that needed to be done ·                      Every task completed was said to have been completed to near professional standard ·                      Received outstanding feedback from employer for hard work, politeness and determination to see that the task was completed to professional standard ·                      Incredible attention to detail was noted by employer when completing certain tasks.
	Education
	Weymouth College 2009- Present BTEC Interactive Media (year 1) Unit names and relent projects Ø  Working to a brief in the creative industry Ø  Web Authoring Ø  Pre-Production techniques Ø  Digital graphics for interactive media Ø  Research techniques Ø  Digital communication Ø  Video production for interactive media Ø  Interactive authoring Ø  Critical approaches to Media projects Main projects: Interactive authoring  - creation of an application within GL Basic Web authoring: creation of a website for a movie BTEC IT and Business Level 2 Unit names Ø  Working in the IT industry Ø  Communicating in the IT industry Ø  Computer Systems Ø  Organizations using IT Ø  Doing Business Online Ø  Project Planning Using IT Ø  Presenting information Using IT Get into creative: Art and Design Level 1 Wey Valley School and Sports College 2004-2009 GCSE’s taken: Mathematics – E English Language –D Applied Science – C D&T Electronic Products – D History – D
	Skills
	Skill Name	Skill Level	Last Used/Experience
	MS Office Suite	Expert	Currently used/5 years
	Adobe Photoshop	Intermediate	Currenty using/3 years
	Adobe Illustrator	Novice	Currently used/8 months
	Adobe Flash	Intermediate	Currently used/8months
	Adobe Dreamweaver	intermediate	1 year ago/2 months
	Gl Basic	Expert	Currently used/8 months
	HTML	intermediate	1 year ago/2months
	Actionscrpit 2& 3	Novice	Currently used/8 months
	General computing	Expert	Currently Used/9 years
		Intermediate	2 years ago/1 year
	Additional Information Available for temporary, permanent or contract work

applying for jobs :part 2

Jobs and applying for them: Part 2

The job that I could potentially apply for is Games designer. This is for a companys client. The studio is based in Soho, London. The ad states that “They are looking for a games designer to work side by side with the manager on new interactive TV/film concepts and projects.”

Job description

The job focuses on creating and writing in game design mechanics that are both fun and innovative. The job also noted of the expectation of game designers bringing their creativity and skills in a host of situations with the willingness to raise the quality of work on the title that they are working on.

Job roles/responsibility

The primary responsibility of this job is to create design documents detailing game mechanics core to the experience of the company’s entertainment products.

Skills that I  have for this job:

The skills that I already have for this job are;

The ability to design detailed game mechanics from inception to completion.

The ability to work as a team, including artists and programmers to fine tune these game mechanics.

An understanding of video game production;

Verbal and written communication skills

Diligence and attention to detail

A passion for console and PC games

An interest in designing experiences for younger audiences

Skills that I don’t have and can still learn.

All though I already pretty much have this skills that are required for this job there are still some skills that I can still learn that are still relevant to the job. The skills that I and still learn for this job are;

Illustrator

Photoshop

Adobe InDesign

Other design programs.

Although this technically is and is not a skill ti learn for the job it is required regardless. This is that I must have at least 2 years’ worth of experience in working within the video game industry.

Besides finding employers through advertisements another way that you are able to meet a potential employer is at a games convention. Here, a company will set up a stall where they have demos of their latest games in development , then you can enquire about the job or alternatively companies will go to these conventions  to look for people to hire.

applying for jobs: part one

The average salary for the interactive media industry in the UK is only £38,750. However the average salary for the IT industry is allot higher. The average salary for the IT industry in the UK is £50,000. However this is seen as a generalisation for both the interactive media and IT sectors and the actual amount will vary from job to job.

The amount of interactive media jobs that have been advertised on the itjobswatch.co.uk website over the past 3 months to now is 41 permanent jobs. The amount of contract interactive media jobs that have been advertised on the website is only 28.

90% of all the interactive media jobs that are advertised on this website are likely to only be junior positions. This can be found out because the average salary for 90% of the interactive media jobs is much lower compared to the other 10% where the salary is allot higher  as the job is likely to be of a senior position.

The areas of the UK that have the highest amount of interactive media is in London and the south east.

the interactive media job skills that are the most required  or desired are: iphone OO,  flash Action script 2 and 3, Java and jQuerry.

The top 3 examples of computer applications that are the most in demand at the moment in the interactive media industry are: Photoshop, Ms Office and illustrator

After clicking find jobs on the itjobswatch webpage another page form a job agency pops up. The top 3 jobs that this page comes up with is: software developer, front end website developer and test automation engineer

A job agency is a company which uses your cv and makes copies of it and then sends them to different companies that have been applied for. They make their money bey taking a small percentage of what you earn after a pre-determined amount of time.

A rearmament job is a job where you get paid a yearly salary every month of a pre-determined amount. A permanent job is so because you stay in that job unless you get sacked, made redundant or leave. However a contract job is different. A contract job is a job where you are given a task r project to work on and you have an amount of time to do it, which is one of the agreements of the contract. The other difference is you get paid considerably more money than a salary job, but you only get paid after the task is completed.

the principals of interactive authoring

This essay is about the principals of interactive authoring. the essay will cover the following topics: the difference between authoring and programming, examples of authoring tools, what they are used for and review complexity, the definition of ‘assets’, what timelines, slideshows, buttons etc. are and what they can be used for, the limitations of authoring applications and the debate of whether or not to bother with learning a real language such as C and C++, which will also cover how close the basic language is to c.

The difference between authoring and programming

Authoring and programming could be considered as similar things, as this is because they both have a similar outcome, you will always be able to create something from them both. However, authoring and programming are actually completely different. The main difference between authoring tools and programming tools is that authoring tools require less technical knowledge in order to properly master. Below, are the definitions for authoring tools and programming tools.

Authoring  

Sometimes known as authorware, authoring is a program that helps you to create or write hypertext (web pages) or multimedia applications. These programs are known as authoring tools. These authoring tools usually enable you to create a final application merely by linking together objects, such as text, images, video or sound. This is done by defining the objects relationships with each other and then sequencing them in an appropriate order. Authors (those who use authoring tools) are then able to produce attractive and useful graphics applications. Although it doesn’t have to be used, most authoring tools support a scripting language which can be used to create more advanced applications. http://www.webopedia.com/term/a/authoring_tool.html

Programming

Programming however is completely different from authoring. Programming is the process of developing and implementing various sets of instructions which are defined as code, for example, Basic, used in GL Basic, and ActionScript2&3, used in Flash, and enable a computer to complete certain tasks. These instructions are considered to be computer programs and can help a computer to run smoothly or specific code that will run a program. The coding languages that are used in programming can be complicated and ranges firm easy programs such as Flash, GL Basic and Dark Basic. To harder, very complicate languages such as C++ and independent languages that are used for the creation of videogames, for example GOOL. (A programming language that was once used by the company Naughty Dog, for the creation of crash bandicoot, 2 and 3.) these programming languages cannot be understood unless they have or are able to learn them. Computer programming has become increasingly more desirable as the internet and media continues to expand and is no longer restricted to just being used for videogames

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/computer-programming.html

 Examples of authoring tools

Programs that can be used to author something in are known as authoring tools. One f the first author tool application that’s springs to mind is Microsoft PowerPoint, for Windows and the free Impress by OpenOffice.org.  Both of these programs are presentation programs. Both programs are also remarkably similar to each other. In both PowerPoint and Impress, you are able to create presentations to express and present ideas or information.  Within these applications you can put together text, images, video clips, and even animations to create these presentations.

Another authoring tool that can be used is Flash. In flash you can create movies, short animations, slideshows, websites and even full games. Flash however, is a lot more advanced, in terms of the end product that can be created. Within flash, there is a scripting code that can be universally used for buttons of movies, game controls, and website navigation and so on.

 Another authoring too that is surprisingly overlooked is Adobe Dreamweaver. Once owned my macromedia, this application allows for the easy and painless creation of websites. The language used in this program is HTML, the language used to create websites. This program even has a feature where you can choose create a website using code alone, designing mode of design and code at the same time. The way this program works is, unlike Flash, the program inputs the code as you are designing a website. The html is even highlighted in different colours to make it easier to tell the different parts of the code apart. 

 Gl Basic is also considered a programming tool. This however, is by far the most complicated authoring tool as technically qualifies as both a programming and authoring tool. This is because the main feature of this program is its unique programming language known as Basic. Using this tool, you are able to create programs and mobile phone (iPhone and Android only) applications. In this tool you have to write your program using this special language and then run your program to see the results.

About ‘Assets’

Assets are anything that is used in order an application what it actually is. An asset is something that is put into an application. Assets are everything from images, sprites, and backgrounds, the code (if needed), and sound effects, Music, text and anything else that’s created for use with the applications. The created assets belong to the developer or developers of whoever created the application in the first place.  For example, the assets used for my iPhone/Android game, the assets for my game include backgrounds, sprites, and music. My character for my game is one of my main assets. The assets that compose my game make my game what it is. Otherwise it would look like a black screen with nothing happening in it.  

Interactive elements of applications

Interactive elements within applications mean that you are able to interact with the application itself. Buttons, sliders, pop out boxes and a host of other things are used in most if not all flash applications. Slideshows, timelines and effects are also interactive elements that are used in many applications.

Buttons

Basically, a button is an image of any shape, size or colour which is then placed onto the stage or workspace. It is then converted into a symbol which Flash uses for animations. The button can then be given what’s known as an Instance name, which is what the object gets referred to as in the Action Script code. Then layers are created with pages, a layer for buttons and one for pages. On the layer with nothing on it, the user can then input code which will give the button commands such as moving to different frames or ‘pages. Any button can be given any command as long as you know its input code.

Timeline

A timeline is a long series of frames which an animation will be made up of. Each frame contains a still picture or a motion tween (a feature which allows for smooth animation of movement) and when it it played the computer will play each one in a sequence making up the animation. A timeline can be used for other things as well. A timeline can be used to contain information such as separate animations, script code or even features of webpages. There is a timeline in both Adobe Flash and Adobe after Effects. There are timelines in many animation programs also.    

Slideshow

A slide show is a series of pages with text, images and video clips that move consecutively one after another. Each page or slide can have images and texts thrown together and then played either automatically over a period of time, or manually by clicking when finished with each slide

Effects (in PowerPoint, etc)

There are many effects that can be used to make a presentation look a lot more interesting. There are two main types, transitions and normal animations. The stage animations or slide transitions are used for slide transitions. The slide animates away so that a new slide will be animated onto the screen. The normal animation effects can be applied to virtually everything that’s within the slide. The effects consist of many animations of three type’s   animations, intro, exit and emphasis. All three types of animation have different animations within them, including different motion paths that can be used so that every animation is customisable.

Limitations of authoring tools

Although you can make professional looking applications, presentations, animations or web pages, all these programs have their limitations. For example, with PowerPoint, there is only so much that you can do with the animations available and they are only customisable to some degree.  Another example of a limitation of authoring tools is with some programs you have to mput up with the layout of the program itself. 

C and GL basic

It can be argued that one one side, there would be no point in learning C, which is allot more complex than Basic, as the code within Gl Basic is compiled into C and then run as the program anyway. However, on the other hand, there is only so much you can do using the Basic code, and there is also a limited amount of memory that’s available to use when running a program. for example I had to limit the amount of levels within my game as I already had used up  loads of the memory. There’s allot more that you can do using C, the downside is you have to learn a new and extremely complicate programming language, but n the upside, if you master it ten you are able to create pretty much anything, as well as have the expertise to code in other languages.

import tween

in the past two lessons today i was following a turorial about mx tween imports.

import mx.transitions.Tween; //tween imports. imports a library of
import mx.transitions.easing.*;//animations to call up at any time
 this command imports all sorts of animation tweens that you are able to use at your disposal.

the initial aim of the tutorial was to rezise a object using imported tweens using button commands.
the code that was used throughout the tutorial is here:

import mx.transitions.Tween; //tween imports. imports a library of
import mx.transitions.easing.*;//animations to call up at any time
onEnterFrame = function(){
 btn1._x = stage.width/2-box._width/2 - btn._width

var oldH = newH
var newH = 300
var oldW = newH
var newW = 300
var oldH = 0
var newH = 300
var oldW = 0
var newW = 300




}
btn1.onPress = function(){
oldH = newH
 newH = 300
 oldW = newW
 newW = 300

 new Tween(box, "_width", Elastic.easeOut, oldH, newH, 2, true);
 new Tween(box, "_height", Elastic.easeOut, oldW, newW, 2, true);

}

btn2.onPress = function(){

 oldH = newH
 newH = 300
 oldW = newW
 newW = 50
 new Tween(box, "_width", Elastic.easeOut, oldH, newH, 2, true);
 new Tween(box, "_height", Elastic.easeOut, oldW, newW, 2, true);
}
btn3.onPress = function(){

 oldH = newH
 newH = 650
 oldW = newW
 newW = 650
 new Tween(box, "_width", Elastic.easeOut, oldH, newH, 2, true);
 new Tween(box, "_height", Elastic.easeOut, oldW, newW, 2, true);
}

Stage.align = "TL";
Stage.scaleMode = "noscale";
sizeListener = new Object();
sizeListener.onResize = function() {
 fullsize();
};
Stage.addListener(sizeListener);
_global.fullsize = function() {
box._x = stage.width/2-box._width/2
box._y = stage.height/2 -box._height/2
};
fullsize();

this is a screen capture of the end result.

flash fullscreen

this is the code for action scipt 2 in flash for a tutorial that we were doing in class. the code is designed to
to keep a website or game proportionate to the screen thats being used, so the initial size of the stage could be really smalll, but can be extended to fita screen pf any size. this isnt a tutorial on how to doit and is unfinished, but would like to finish it at some point.

code used:

Stage.align = "TL";
Stage.scaleMode = "noScale";
sizeListener = new Object();
sizeListener.onResize = function(){
 fullsize();

};
Stage.addListener(sizeListener);
_global.fullsize = function(){
navBar._width = Stage.width
box1._x = stage.width/2 - box1._width/2
box1._x = stage.width/2 - box1._height/2
bg._width = stage.width
bg._height = stage.height
};
fullsize();
btn.onPress = function(){
 box1.gotoAndStop(); (1)


}

screen grab of the initial result (dosnt look right as i havent got around to finish it yet.

some of the other objects in the screen shot are behind the background image. i might be able to remedy this for future flash projects.
 

game progress: Fruit Hero Beta v1.1

Over the past few months i have started development for a game for use on i-phone and android phones. Over the past few weeks, development of this game became slower and slower and on last Monday all development grinded to a halt, as that day i couldn’t work on it in college as i had lost my memory stick. However, yesterday, with a little help from my class mates i was able to get development back on track and ahead of schedule.

i was able to create a score and lives system. The sprite collision works flawlessly and the fruit sprits drop and restart fluently. Now all i have to is add a start-up screen, a win screen, game over screen and add music, if possible and giving credit to their original creators.

At the moment i am currently working mainly on the graphics of the game as this is the most important bit. As i had changed the screen resolution of my game 3 times, the first time starting really small, second time being default PC size and the third time being the actual phone resolution, i now have to redo all the sprites that i had done. On top of that i also now have to add more sprites and implement their functions into the game.

Adobe After effects tutorial result

This is a video of a turorual that i had done with my lecturer in class this morning. all though it's unfinished for now, i hope to come back to it at some point in the future.

its not like other peoplses in the class but its close enough :)

Reflective Anaylisis

E-zine article 2: video for interactive media

for this article I will be writing about how designers use digital video technology in order to enhance an end users interactive experience on specifically different delivery platforms. in This article i will be using both primary and secondary research as to how people use videos in interactive media. I will also be Harvard referencing any quotes and resources found from secondary research and i will also be referencing these as necessary. This article will cover; Applications (youtube), cost effectiveness, past and present, user-generated content, viral videos and advertising and file formats used for youtube.

Application: Youtube.

About Youtube:

Youtube, LLC (Limited, Liability, Company) is a video-sharing website that was created by three former PayPal employees,,Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim in February, 2005. the company is based in San Bruno, California. Youtube is a website in which users can upload, view and share videos across the Internet. The website incorporates Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technologies in order to display a wide variety of user-generated video content which includes; blogs, tv-shows, original videos, film clips and music videos. In November 2006, youtube, LLC was bought by google for 1.65 billion US dollars and now operates as a subsidiary of google. (anonymous user, Wikipedia. ( last modified on 4 March 2012 at 06:57.).

Cost effectiveness, now and then

media costs then

back in the early 1990's, having a digital video system that was capable of capturing full screen video imagery would have cost several thousands of pounds. Even worse, the biggest cost of digital video technology was the compression hardware. This compression hardware was needed to reduce the huge file sizes that were the result form the conversion of analogue video signal into digital data of a manageable size. Less powerful video capture cards were available, capable of compressing files in a similar way however even these were too expensive for the average pc user. The consumer end of the market was limited to basic cards that were able to capture video, but had none of the dedicated hardware compression features of their own. These low cost cards relied on the host PC to handle the raw digital video files the produced and the only way to keep the file sizes manageable was to drastically reduce the image size size. (PC-techguide. (2012).

media costs, now

now video production is easier and cheaper than ever. Cameras so are so cheap that you can pick one up for a really cheap price. In-fact cameras are so commonplace nowadays that all laptop pc s come with a webcam built in, and all phones have a camera within them. It has become easier than ever to create video and youtube is evidence of this. In the past it would have been impossible to record a video of something completely random as the equipment needed for it would have been just too expensive.

Thee are many devices that will contain a camera capable of capturing digital video. Some of the cameras on these devices are higher or lower tech than others but they all serve the same function. Examples of cameras on everyday devices include; Laptop PCs Smart Phones, mobile phones in general.

There are countless programs that can be used to edit video footage, ranging from amateurish programs such as Sony Vegas, Basic ones such as Windows Movie Maker and slightly more professional ones such as Adobe After Effects. All these programs can be used to either edit add or take away audio, add visual effects, slowdown or speedup footage, the possibilities are near enough limitless. Using these programs you can make professional looking footage from something as simple and basic as an iphone camera.

User-generated Content

what is user-generated content?

User generated content is as the name suggests, content that is generated by other users. One key advantage of user generated content is it doesn’t have to be sent to mainstream media publishers for approval for it to then be distributed to an audience. This means that anyone can,for example upload a video to youtube with the potential for the video to reach millions of people. They can also provide unedited commentary on any topic they wish and then publish it on a forum, blog, or youtube as a vlog. Usually,when people upload content on the Internet, people are only just sharing with a community of other people with similar interests. (Paul Bradshaw. (January 15, 2010).

Most of all the content that is uploaded to youtube is user-generated, meaning that the content is only up there because the users put it up there. However,over recent years the amount of content that is being uploaded by individual youtube users is slowly decreasing the last two years there has been an increasing amount of large corporations that have been uploading their own videos to the website. Large corporations such as CBS, BBC, VEVO Hulu, among other organisations host their material on the website as part of the youtube partnership program.

Unregistered users can watch videos on the site for free, while registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos, as well as the ability to rate(as of 2010, like and dislike) comment, add favourites, and create play-lists of videos they like. Videos that are considered to contain offensive or adult related content is normally flagged by users with a registered account. This will mean that they are unavailable to non registered users. Content like this is only available to registered users if they are at least 18 years old. Under-age users will be re-directed to an error page.

Viral videos and advertising 

Viral Advertising

viral advertising is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message or advertisement. Viral marketing depends on a high pass along rate from one person to another. If one percentage of people get an email advertisement and then forward that email to a large number friends on their contact list, then the overall growth rockets tremendously. However if the pass along rates become too low then the growth rate fizzles out completely (Marketing terms. (2012).

the term viral advertising or Marketing was actually coined in the mid 1990's in order to describe a marketing cam pain made by Hotmail.com to rapidly expand its customer base. There may well have been viral advertisement campaigns before this, however the hotmail campaign has the reputation to be the first organization to use it. What hotmail actually did for there advertising campaign was really simple. All they did was add a link to their “join now for free” page to every email that was sent but hotmail users. By doing this, the amount of Hotmail users grew from only a few hundred people to over 20,000 people in just two weeks.Marketing terms. (2012).

As well as this there are other viral marketing strategies that are adopted by organizations everywhere. Some of theses strategies include; giving away a free e-book when someone click on affiliate links, giving the reader the right to pass it along to their friends and the 'tell a friend' button that appears on some websites. (Mobile Internet marketing Dictionary. (2012).

Viral Videos

A viral video is a video which is spread through online sharing, such as blogs, forums, email, and sharing sites. To be "viral", the video needs to be appealing to the audience, and it usually achieves this by being different, funny, and witty. Viral videos are commonplace on websites such as youtube where most viral videos are usually uploaded to.

Features and file format used for Youtube

file formats that are accepted by youtube

Mpeg(mpg)

YouTube recommends MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) with MP3 audio. This option probably provides the best compromise between quality and file size. Other versions of MPEG are also acceptable.

AVI

This is the default format used by many editing programs. It provides excellent picture quality but file sizes are large. This can be a good option for short videos.

MOV, WMV & Others

These are perfectly acceptable, but may not provide the same quality or small file sizes as MPEG4.

(Media College. (2012)

Compression

In most cases you will need to compress your video before you upload it this can be done using the video editing software The best approach is to compress files the least amount possible. YouTube will re-compress the file when it is converted to FLV, so you don't need to worry about the file size. If you have a fast connection and plenty of bandwidth, it makes sense to create video files with the least compression while still keeping to the 100MB size limit. (Media College. (2012)

Video Size (Resolution, Pixel Dimensions)

YouTube recommends a resolution of 320x240. Although this is actually smaller than the youtube video window, however when the video is uploaded, the video will expand to fit the space required.

On the whole, 320x240 is a fairly good compromise which suits the different player sizes well enough. however the video will not always be seen on the large version of the player, and some versions of the player are actually smaller than 320x240. (Media College. (2012)

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References

1. anonymous user, Wikipedia. ( last modified on 4 March 2012 at 06:57.). Youtube . Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube. Last accessed 2012.
2. Paul Bradshaw. (January 15, 2010). What is user generated content?. Available: http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2010/01/15/what-is-user-generated-content/. Last accessed 05/03/2012.
3. PC-techguide. (2012). The History of Digital Video. Available: http://www.pctechguide.com/uncategorized/the-history-of-digital-video. Last accessed 6^th March 2012.
4. Media College. (2012). Youtube Video Formats. Available: http://www.mediacollege.com/video/internet/youtube/formats.html. Last accessed 6th march 2012.
5. Marketing terms. (2012). Viral Marketing . Available: http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/viral_marketing/. Last accessed 6th March 2012.
6. Mobile Internet marketing Dictionary. (2012). Viral Advertising . Available: http://mobile.internetmarketing-dictionary.com/Viral_Advertising.html. Last accessed 6th March 2012.