Friday 29 November 2013

Graphics Planning (AKSHAY)

06:52 | Posted by | | Edit Post
Today as a group we discussed many different aspects of graphics and planned what kind of graphics we could use for our news package. For inspiration we looked at a complexed very "well done" graphics piece from channel news.

Then after we watched this we discussed what ideas we could take from this and how we could implement it, in a unique style for our news package.


What did we learn from this?
When looking at this professional graphics news piece from Channel 4 News we learnt and found many different creative aspects which we would like to implement in our piece, however in our own different style. Some of these were:

-Effective Title Transitions

- Typography Text Effects

- 3D Animation

- Animation of Still Images.

- Transitions which link to the clip theme. (For example an explosion occurs, have an explosion vfx come in).
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Thursday 28 November 2013

8 Shot Short News Package (AKSHAY)

09:08 | Posted by | | Edit Post
Today we were practising shooting a potential part of our news package. This increaded our skills in terms of when we need to interview someone. This was due to the shots we used, editing the clips with ambient sound and the timing of different clips.

Our task was to copy this 8 Shot Short News Package:


And here is what we produced as a group, i felt after some feedback we really looked closely at the original and tried to imitate it as closely as we can.

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Planning A TV News Package Video (AKSHAY)

04:07 | Posted by | | Edit Post
Today as a group we discussed on how to plan producing a news package, we watched a very useful video by the BBC explaining how to professionally create a news package and all the steps which go with it. We learnt that producing a television news package means working quickly and accurately and juggling multiple tasks often under intense pressure. Magnus McGrandle is a senior producer on the News at Six and Ten bulletins on BBC One.
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Feedback Report (Antonio)

01:15 | Posted by | | Edit Post
In today lesson we showed our peers and other students our News channel intro and whilst watching it we asked the students too fill out a feedback report with several questions which enables us to read the feedback and make adjustments if need be and it is useful for us to know what when down well and what aspects were good about our intro. Whilst most of the comments were all positive and people really seemed to enjoy the graphics and music of the opening scene, it was thought that the two went really well together and clearly indicate what type of news channel was being watched. However as well as receiving vast amounts of positive feedback we were given suggestions of how to make our intro even better. One suggestion was that we should try to include some footage within our intro, this was interesting as when we were producing the intro the concept of footage was something that was constantly talked about and whether it should be included or not. We decided to not include footage because our topic does not actually include any footage as it is all computer based work although within our news package we will have footage of interviews there wouldn't be ant footage of actual crimes taking place therefore the footage was irrelevant and it would contradict our project.
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Wednesday 20 November 2013

Progression Of Music (Antonio)

11:36 | Posted by | | Edit Post
This blog is designed to show you the progression of the music i have produced for the past couple of weeks for our opening scene. It was essential that the music went well with the footage and made it clear that we were a news channel.

Initially i started off using Garage Band to create loops and a sequence of sounds provided by the library found in Garage Band. After putting several pieces together the music didn't seem complete therefore i decided to try and add different sounds to see whether there would be a difference but there wasn't and after that i felt that there wasn't much more i could so i thought id transfer the music i had so far into audacity and see whether i could change anything for the better.


I finished off the music by using a program called audacity. Audacity enables you to really get to grips with the music sample, i was able to cut and paste specific parts of the sample in order to move beats around to fit our opening scene. You can create more than one layer to the music which is also good as i found that on Garage Band when trying to do so the sounds would clash all too often.
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TV news package part 2.0 15/11/13 (David)

03:46 | Posted by | | Edit Post
News Package Part 2.0

1. Impersonation. Does the social networking account (e.g., Twitter Account) belong to the actual person or company it is representing? For example, if you look at the Twitter account @johnsileo, you will see that the name is used to send business to a gentleman who is also an identity theft speaker. The actual account is @john_sileo. Whether this is considered social networking squatting or social networking identity theft,  it’s impersonation.

2. Ownership. Who owns the data on the social networking sites’ servers? Do you own what you post on Facebook, what you email through Google Mail or the financials you backup off-site on someone else’s servers? The fact that you don’t know should trouble you as much as it does me. People could be extracting information about you posted on the internet, and using for it for bad intentions.






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Monday 18 November 2013

NEW Blog Design (AKSHAY)

11:56 | Posted by | | Edit Post
For our Blog, I felt that TRC News as a group wanted a more creative and elegant Blog design rather than the standard ones by "Blogger". I created a brand new Blog Design from scratch using a program called Artisteer.

You will be reading this post on our Blog, so you can see and make your own opinion about our new design, however here is a screenshot of the new design as a single picture.


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TV News Package Story Idea (Antonio)

10:55 | Posted by | | Edit Post
As a group we discussed possible stories and elements that we are going to have in our news package, therefore I created a spider diagram to scatter ideas and thoughts in order to help enable us to experiment and test out different stories and to see roughly whether all the elements suggested so far can be related and incorporated within each other. Here is my prezi on our spider diagram:
http://prezi.com/9hsjpjxyaksr/technological/
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Saturday 16 November 2013

Police Warn of 'Ransom' Spam - J.

02:16 | Posted by | | Edit Post

This is an article from the BBC, written by Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology Correspondent.
Leading search engine companies By  Google and Microsoft have agreed measures to make it harder to find child abuse images online.

As many as 100,000 search terms will now return no results that find illegal material, and will trigger warnings that child abuse imagery is illegal.

PM David Cameron has welcomed the move but said it must be delivered or he would bring forward new legislation.

Child protection experts have warned most images are on hidden networks.

In July, Mr Cameron called on Google and Microsoft's Bing - which together account for 95% of search traffic - to do more to prevent people getting access to illegal images.

He said that they needed to ensure that searches which were unambiguously aimed at finding illegal images should return no results.

New software

Now both companies have introduced new algorithms [software instructions] that will prevent searches for child abuse imagery delivering results that could lead to such material.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt says: "These changes have cleaned up the results for over 100,000 queries that might be related to the sexual abuse of kids."

"As important, we will soon roll out these changes in more than 150 languages, so the impact will be truly global."

The restrictions will be launched in the UK first, before being expanded to 158 other languages in the next six months.

Mr Schmidt goes on to describe work in the area of deterrence. "We're now showing warnings - from both Google and charities - at the top of our search results for more than 13,000 queries."

Alert warning
Warnings like this will appear on screen if users type in search terms related to child abuse
"These alerts make clear that child sexual abuse is illegal and offer advice on where to get help."

Microsoft, which in a rare display of unity is working closely with Google on this issue, says its Bing search engine will also produce clean results.

The company said it had always had a zero tolerance attitude to child sexual abuse content and had been putting in place stronger processes to prevent access since the summer.

Later on Monday, the two companies will join other internet firms at Downing Street for an Internet Safety Summit.

The prime minister said significant progress has been made since his speech in July calling for action, but warned that new legislation could be introduced if the companies failed to deliver.

At the time, he said that Google and Microsoft had said that blocking search results couldn't be done but he did not accept that.

Tory MP Claire Perry, Mr Cameron's adviser on the sexualisation and commercialisation of childhood, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the new measures were a "great step forward".

"We're not declaring victory but this is a massive step in the right direction," she said.

'Missed opportunity'

But Jim Gamble, former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) told BBC Breakfast he did not think the measures would make any difference with regard to protecting children from paedophiles.

"They don't go on to Google to search for images. They go on to the dark corners of the internet on peer-to-peer websites," he said.

He said search engines had already been blocking inappropriate content and the latest move was just an enhancement of what was already happening.

A better solution would be to spend £1.5m on hiring 12 child protection experts and 12 co-ordinators in each of the police regions to hunt down online predators, he added.

NSPCC chief executive officer Peter Wanless said "a concerted and sustained effort from all quarters" was needed to stay one step ahead of sex offenders that were getting ever more technologically advanced.

"This is the key child protection issue of a generation - we cannot fail," he said.

A June report by the Ceop highlighted how the "hidden internet" helped distributors of child abuse images to evade detection by using encrypted networks and other secure methods.

Google and Microsoft have agreed to work with the UK's National Crime Agency and the Internet Watch Foundation to try to tackle networks which host child abuse images.

The two companies are also using their technological expertise to help in the identification of abuse images.

Microsoft's PhotoDNA already allows a photo to be given a unique "fingerprint" which means it can be tracked as it is shared across the internet. Now Google has developed VideoID which does the same job with videos.

Both firms will provide this technology to the National Crime Agency and other organisations to help in the work of finding and detecting those behind the creating and sharing of child abuse images.

But critics have accused the government of underfunding online child protection.

Ceop, which is now part of the National Crime Agency, has been accused of missing a recent opportunity to identify hundreds of people downloading illegal images.

Police in Toronto revealed that in 2012 they had shared hundreds of names of British people with Ceop who were alleged to be customers of a Canadian firm that sold videos of young children.

The operation to close down the business saw hundreds of people arrested in Canada and around the world - but none in Britain.

On Friday, the National Crime Agency said Ceop had examined the material but it had been classified as being on a low level of seriousness. However, the agency has now ordered a review of Ceop's handling of the case.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24980765

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Opening Sequence FULL Creation/Editing Process (AKSHAY)

06:41 | Posted by | | Edit Post
This shows the editing process I took with screenshots of how I created our TRC News Opening Sequence. It also shows the types of "advanced" effects I used and how it linked into the Technology theme.

1 - Background
The first step of creating the opening sequence was to create a simple but sleek background
which fit in with the theme of technology. I used a Light Blue to Dark Blue radial gradient theme.

2 - Creating HUD Effect
The second step was to create the first graphic which was the HUD Shapes, these shapes represented a holographic motion effect.

3 - Applying HUD Effect
The third step was to simply Pre-Compose the HUD Effect intro a separate composition, then apply it onto the main composition over the background.

4 - Matrix Hacking Effect
 I then added one of the most stand out features of the opening sequence which was the Matrix Hacking Effect. I downloaded this footage which was initially designed on After Effects already. However I simply edited the colour of the clip to a Light-Dark Blue and then set the blend mode of the Matrix layer to "Hard Light" which allowed it to fully blend in the background while adding a sleek glow.


5 - World Map Texture
For the next part of the creation of the opening sequence I applied a flat map of the world texture in front of the BG Layer. I the changed the colour of the map from Black - Light Blue which would help it blend in more. 

6 - Animating Coloured Stripes 
In this I created these animated blue stripes, I firstly used the "Fractal Noise" effect to create the lines and then key-framed the evolution of them to have an animating and appearing at different times. I then applied the "Colorama" effects which allow the animating stripes be a overall Blue colour, however also with a black tint.

7 - Background Grid Texture
In the image below you can slightly see a grid texture blended with the Background, I firstly created a black solid, I then applied a white grid effect onto the solid white made the solid a white transparent grid, I then finally applied a CC Cylinder effect to the grid which allowed it to have a slight 3D bend look to it.

8 - 3D Grid Globe
For the 8th step I firstly needed to create a 3D Grid Sphere, so i imported a image of a grid into After Effects and then added the CC Sphere effect which allowed the flat 2D Grid to become a fully 3D Sphere. I then added a gradient ramp and changed the colour to Light-Dark Blue. I then finally added a Glow which have the globe a attractive glowing visual look.

9 - 3D Globe
For the 9th step I firstly needed to create a 3D Globe, so i imported a image of a flat map into After Effects and then added the CC Sphere effect which allowed the flat 2D Grid to become a fully 3D Sphere. I then added a gradient ramp and changed the colour to Light-Dark Blue. I next finally added a Glow which have the globe a attractive glowing visual look. Once I had done this I created the 3 stripes which circled the globe by drawing out 3 quadrilateral shapes and applying the same effects to them as I did for the globe.
I then applies 3D Rotational Keyframes to the 3 stripes which allowed them to circular hover around the globe.

10 - Animating 3D Globe's 
Once I had Pre-Composed the two globe's together they fitted nicely inside one another giving the globe a really visually pleasing look. So then I applied a 3D Rotational & Positional Keyframe  to the globe which would animate it from off the screen to on the screen while also animating the rotation of the globe as if it was spinning on its axis while moving position.

11 - Creating Text
Here you can see that I was in the process of creating the text for the opening sequence. However firstly I drew 3 Quadrilateral shapes, the bigger one to hold the text and the other 2 for display. Once I had created the text and the shapes, I added two Optical Flares and key-framed them to slide across the big shape on the left.

12 - Animating Text
The final step of the creation process of the whole opening sequence was to Animate the text. So what i did here was firstly Pre-Compose the text and 3 shapes, i then applied a 3D Rotational & Positional Keyframe  to the text which would animate it from off the screen to on the screen while also animating the rotation of the whole text pre-composition.

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UK Police Launch Campaign to Shut Down Torrent Sites - J.

04:50 | Posted by | | Edit Post
By Andy, Via Torrent Freak.
cityoflondonpoliceCity of London Police inform TorrentFreak that they have begun targeting sites that provide access to unauthorized content for “criminal gain.” The initiative is part of a collaboration with Hollywood studios represented by FACT and the major recording labels of the BPI. In letters being sent out now, police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau further warns that the crimes carry a jail sentence of 10 years.
Authorities and entertainment industry companies in the UK are working together on a new initiative which targets sites said to be offering copyrighted material without permission, TorrentFreak has learned.
The first signs came last week when a major torrent site received a letter from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), a unit set up following the Government’s National Fraud Review. The unit has a mission to identify serial offenders and organized crime gangs in order to disrupt their activities.
The letter (copy below), sent to “The owners and/or operators of the website known as ‘XXXXX’,” states that the NFIB has become particularly concerned by websites causing harm to the UK’s creative economy.
“We are therefore currently working on an initiative with Government and industry bodies to help prevent, deter and disrupt the criminal activity linked to websites involved in online copyright infringement. In that regard, we have reasonable grounds to suspect that through your ownership and/or operation of the website known as ‘XXXXX’, you are involved in online copyright infringement,” NFIB explain.
So far TorrentFreak is aware that at least two torrent sites have already received letters from the NFIB. Their operations are detailed as follows:
“XXXXX is a BitTorrent website that – without the permission of the copyright holder – actively provides UK internet users with a bespoke directory and search engine for torrent files. This enables users to find and download copyright content which would otherwise be time consuming or impossible to locate,” the letter notes.
NFIBbig
Even though neither site is located in the UK, police believe that sites’ operators are committing crimes there.
“We have grounds to suspect that as owners and/or operators of the XXXXX website, you are committing the offense of communication to the public under s.107(2A) of the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988 (“CDPA”). Section 107(2A) is an indictable offence punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment,” NFIB state.
But while allegations of copyright-related offenses are nothing out of the ordinary, in their letter the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau elevate the seriousness of file-sharing offenses to unprecedented levels.
“Further, we have grounds to suspect that as owners and/or operators of the XXXXX website, you are committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act 2007 by doing acts capable of encouraging and assisting communication to the public (under s.107(2A) of the CDPA); and/or distribution (under s.107(1)(e) of the CDPA) of copyright content seeded by others – intending or believing that those offenses will be encouraged or assisted.
“Such activity is an indictable offense under the Serious Crime Act 2007 and is punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment (two years for encouraging/assisting communication to the public; and ten years for encouraging/assisting distribution),” the NFIB warn.
The letters conclude with advice for site operators to contact the NFIB immediately in order to “prevent the further commission of offenses.”
“If no contact is made before 14th June 2013 then you and/or the XXXXX website may face police action,” the letter concludes.
TorrentFreak contacted NFIB who confirmed that an initiative is indeed underway.
“City of London Police has begun an initiative to target websites that attract visitors by providing unauthorised access to copyrighted content for criminal gain. These websites are able to operate and profit from advertising on their sites without having licenses or paying the creators and owners of the films, TV programmes, music and publications,” a spokesman said in a statement.
bpi“Intellectual property crime is a serious offense that is costing the UK economy hundreds of millions of pounds each year. Working with the UK advertising industry, City of London Police and rights holder groups FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft), BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) and The PA (The Publishers Association) are committed to tackling this problem.”
The BPI say that an NFIB officer was previously embedded with their anti-piracy unit.
“This appointment is the first secondment by NFIB into private industry, enabling City of London Police to develop a greater understanding of the illegal distribution and sale of music online by organised crime gangs,” the music group reveals.
The NFIB add that their initiative also seeks to protect UK consumers from “malware and other harmful programs that may be downloaded unwittingly from sites that provide illegally offered content.”
Any site or service in receipt of the NFIB letter can contact us in confidence at the usual address.

The letter
uk-police
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Thursday 7 November 2013

TV News Package Story Idea (David)

04:17 | Posted by | | Edit Post
Draft Idea
Surveys about Cyber Bullying:
 http://www.ditchthelabel.org/annual-cyber-bullying-survey-cyber-bullying-statistics/
            

Pedophiliac: http://www.channel4.com/news/should-you-let-your-child-play-in-habbo-hotel

Adults log onto teenage social networking sites Like Habbo Hotel etc and inappropriately  speak to underage persons. The link above shows an article about this topic specifically on Channel 4.

Hacking: A 26-year-old journalist has been charged with allegedly conspiring with members of the hacker group Anonymous to hack into the Tribune Co. TRBAA -0.51% system and alter a news story on the Los Angeles Times website, the Justice Department.

 Situations like this are considered Technology related crime.
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Opening Sequence Texture Ideas (AKSHAY)

04:07 | Posted by | | Edit Post
As i was progressing on in making our opening sequence, i wanted to create a technological themed texture for part of the sequence.

The first picture was more of like a journey and futuristic look due to the colours and also the actual animation of the texture.
The second screenshot was essentially a comparison using extremely similar effects. This gave me a clearer insight on what texture looked cleaner and sleeker, while also being link as much as possible to the technology theme.

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News Package & Opening Sequence Discussion (AKSHAY)

02:22 | Posted by | | Edit Post
In today's lesson we discussed with our teacher and as a group how we should proceed in making our opening sequence and also thought about what our actual news package would consist of.

We came up with a conclusion that instead of having real "outside public" pieces of footage, we should have online screenshots and speedclips of social network's and spying agencies such as MI6, SIS and finally found inspiration for two video clips called "AngelDust thriller" and "GeekNews".

MI6 - <a href="https://www.sis.gov.uk/"></a>

SIS - <a href="http://goo.gl/AlrVUB"></a>

Angel Dust - <a href="http://goo.gl/7nzIiQ"></a>

Geek News - <a href="http://goo.gl/AR0gDY"></a>
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News Package and Development (David)

02:17 | Posted by | | Edit Post
We are currently discussing what to use for our news package based on our target audience. This is going to be an important part of our news presentation because we have a variety of sub genres to produce under Tech-related Crime. We decided primarily to use online/on-screen footage instead of actual people. We will use 10 percent of footage from already live sites online but the 90 percent will be 100 percent of our work. This lesson Antonio completed our Padlet and Akshay researched brilliant opening scenes which we used as inspiration for our News Package.
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Wednesday 6 November 2013

TRC News - LOGO PLANNING - Hand Drawn Designs (AKSHAY)

03:53 | Posted by | | Edit Post
This post is regarding the planning of our logo, below you can see the first hand drawn draft, this just shows the outer and inner STROKE which is going to be the base of the logo. 



The second hand drawn design below shows the outer bevel of the logo filled in a faint turquoise colours with a tough of a darker shading near the bottom and top corners of the logo. Then i added a small inner metallic blue to glow the outer circle to help give the logo a aesthetically pleasing look. After in the middle of the logo the text "TRC" has been drawn and centred inside the inner circle. The text is filled with a light to dark blue gradient with a slight inner bevel.


The final step of the planning hand drawn design of the logo was to fill in the middle of the logo, i went for a dark shade if blue so when actually creating the logo on Photoshop, it would allow for the text "TRC" to stand out more.







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