The blog has ended

As promised here are some photos of the launch of Traceur Tag at FACT last night. A big thanks goes to Stas Krakiewicz for taking the photos.

This blog is now officially complete and is a publicly available document of the entire project from beginning to end. To read the blog you will be time-travelling backwards as the most recent post is first and the first post is last. So if you wish to read it in chronological order use the archive links below.

The Future, Fiction and Fantasy Liverpool Biennial 08 Schools Project exhibition that Traceur Tag was made for begins today and goes on until 20th November. It is at The Blackie in Liverpool's China Town, next to the Chinese Arch.


Most of the team, both from De La Salle and St Helens College


Freerunners Dom and Aaron and co-director Adam Hamilton


Adam Hamilton, Dave Bentick and Matt Frodsham


The guests (you know who you are)


L-R Dom, Aaron, Adam, Dave B., Matt, Jo, Ste & Dave W.

Traceur Tag launches tonight

The day is finally here. Tonight the video is launched in The Box cinema in FACT to an invited audience and the last six months of planning, pre-production, production, post-production, DVD creation, website building has now finally come to an end.

The website www.traceurtag.com also launches tonight. On it is background information on the project and it will be updated up to Christmas with more content as it becomes available. The video can be viewed on the main page after the Biennial exhibition opens on the 30th October. The project blog is available to read through the archive section.

The video will tomorrow be exhibited as part of the Future, Fiction and Fantasy Liverpool Biennial Schools Project.

I would just like to acknowledge the the following people who have given some/a lot/all their free time, skill, creativity and expertise along the way:

The core biennialFreerunner Productions team - Dave Bentick, Matt Frodsham, Adam Hamilton, Jose Flores & Stas Krakiewicz

All the pre-production contributors (every contribution helped the project progress) - you know who you are

Toxteth TV for the facilities

John Eyre for the score (and Adam on guitar '-) )

Ste for the printing of the invites

Alan Bridge of Creative Griffin for being a CSS and Flash maestro

Anna from FACT for tonights event

The FACT bar staff for keeping me in caffeine whilst I worked on their very comfy sofas as if it were my office

St Helens College especially Marianne McCracken for seeing this project as a valid academic research project and supporting me in it; and Paul Allen for releasing Matt to work on the project's considerable design. Shabba!

De La Salle School for the actual project and Sophie Bower for putting Jo and me in touch 7 months ago.

In fear of doing a Gwyneth Paltrow and gushing I think I've covered everyone. If they come out the last post on this blog will be photos from tonight.

No thank YOU :-)

Hi Jo and lads,

Risking the dangers of this becoming an escalating luvvie-fest I would like to thank you guys for dropping into our collective lap a project that sparked so much creative energy.

Every member of the core team put in an amazing 200%. I was concerned about exhausting the team's goodwill but they were always up for more.

I have never worked with such a team before. You guys, Matt, Dave, Adam, Jose and Stas are stars! Jo you may in years to come be the catalyst that launches their careers!

We all know that what we achieved was 1000 times more ambitious than we initially conceived. It is good to hear on viewing of the video you all stating how it could (if we started from scratch) be improved again by 1000%. This doesn't devalue the outcome everyone (including you DLS guys) achieved, but illustrates the confidence that this project has instilled in each member of the team. You are all voracious creative animals. I just now need to find a way to unleash you onto the industry so you can realise your potential on paid work.

Respect to you all.

I was going to post a different blog to begin the final wrapping up but I thought I'd say what I felt instead. The other info can wait. I need to catch up on my sleep.

:-)

Thankyou

To Dave and the AMAZING St Helens College Creative Arts Team,

You are all incredible and from the bottom of our hearts we would like to thank you for making this project something far bigger, and better, than we ever dreamed or imagined was possible. Your time, dedication and passion for the arts is so overwhelming and inspiring,I feel privileged to have worked with such brilliant professionals and am so grateful for what you have done for our school. We owe you big time so if there is anything we can ever do for you, please don't hesitate to ask!

Looking forward to the PV next week, you are all fabulous...keep me updated on your next adventure because I am sure there will be something huge for you all around the corner to engulf you once again!

Thankyou,

Jo and the Biennial Freerunners!!!

Matt's workshop

A huge thankyou to Matt for his workshop at DLS, some fantastic work was produced. If you can invoice us(send it via email to me) we can get you sorted out.

DVD rush job - content needed urgently

Hi guys,

Due to last minute remedial work on the video (last minute keying, new scenes, corrections) my time on compiling the DVD has been cut short. Can you use www.megaupload.com to mail me over the weekend any content you want including. Zip up files of videos, images, screenshots before emailing. Time is short guys.

I've spoken to the DVD duplicators and want to get the DVD to them on Wednesday. Jo I will need to arrange handover with you too. I'm in Edinburgh from Monday-Tuesday night so Tuesday is out. If you can arrange with Adam on Tuesday to pick your competition copy up? I'll hand the FACT DVDs in on Thursday as they need to be different to the freebie DVD. This will be the same as the BLACKIE copy. Should I arrange to drop 1 off to Sophie then too?

That's it for now. The eleventh hour guys, the eleventh hour. We're nearly there, then I can sleep :-)

DVD menu screens (working designs)

Hi all,

Here are the proposed DVD menu screens. Matt, I have repurposed your DVD label design, mixing it up with assets from the website for continuity. I have a few more ideas to enhance the design, but I'll keep that quiet until I know I can do it in the time left. On the project page Jo you have five sections. I have only shown three possibilities for now. Confirm what you need to have.

Background


Main Menu links


Project Menu links


Team Menu links


Extras Menu links


Matt, you've earned your spurs! It's your turn to crit the critter. What's your thoughts on what I've done? C'mon you know you want revenge on your lecturer :-)

Also I have put up a placeholder page for www.traceurtag.com. Check it out across different computers and let me know if there are any technical problems with it.

I'm in my Edinburgh hotel as I write this. No reason for telling you that piece of useless information except its fantastic up here.

exhibition statement

The following is what I have sent to Sophie but it will be edited down. I though I would put it up here just so that you can have a nosey! If you think I should change anything or add anything just let me know today if you can and i will let Sophie know. Also, Dave, have a look at the acknowledgements-are you ok with it quite general or do you feel it should list all of the individuals?(it will be under the statement next to our piece? Oh and who has been your financial support at College? Do you want to mention their name?

Thanks...

Traceur Tag
De La Salle School in collaboration with St Helens College


The theme for the schools project, Future, Fiction and Fantasy, seemed to instantly form a connection with our idea to produce a piece of work using Parkour and the virtual world as the concept. This film was a collaborative effort between De La Salle School and St Helens College and it was only through this collaboration that the desire to create a film based on the computer game genre was realised. It was at the initial stages of the collaboration that contemporary artworks such as Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle proved influential along with the film Jump Britain and a variety of computer games such as Halo and Unreal, which helped us to establish the kinds of environment that could form the basis for the film.

Without a doubt the vehicle which supported this project’s creative growth and encouraged clear communication throughout was the Biennial Freerunner’s Blog, instigated by Dave Wood. This blog became a hub of activity which maintained consistency in content during the six month period. Ideas, thoughts, concerns, artistic references and discussions were posted daily, hourly and often by the minute in pursuit of our collective goal. The most interesting element of the blog, from an educational perspective, was the innovative approach to formative assessment, providing rapid responses to creative problems in a contemporary manner aiding motivation and communication. Both De La Salle School and St Helens College are now exploring ways in which blogs can impact upon student’s development and bring assessment methods into the 21st Century.

This film explores a passion for an activity that in society can be considered as subversive or anti social and channels that enthusiasm into a creative medium. From a school’s point of view the boys were given an opportunity to express themselves in a language that is comfortable to them but in a safe environment, they worked with students witnessing the creative process in action but also what vocational links art can provide.

Finally, working on the School’s Project with the Biennial team has provided us with a fantastic opportunity to investigate contemporary approaches to schemes of work, work collaboratively between different institutions and the community and develop effective forms of communication, all of which have supported our personal development for the delivery of new initiatives such as the re-launch of the Secondary Curriculum and the introduction of the Creative and Media Diploma.

Acknowledgements
Aaron Ross, Dominic Andrew, Matthew Fitzhenry and Phillip Smith, the freerunners, Dave Wood and his Creative Team at St Helens College, Matthew Frodsham for his creative lead with the Graphic Design, Jo Millea and De La Salle’s Art Department, Beryl Simmons and Paul Ross for financial support.

DVD Structure

Hi Jo,

Here's the structure for the DVD. It follows the website structure but naturally has different content. The textual content of the website won't be suitable for a DVD. The Extras section translates well but the Archive section wont. The Team and Project sections will need slightly differing content.

I propose to add course showreels and a college video to the Team section. I suggest we add all of or a cut of the video Adam has been doing for DLS and anything else you've got from the art department. What do you think?

Here's the suggested structure:

Jo: Workshop on wed

Hi Jo, while you're thinking about who you want to invite...

Can you ask the lads to each find an image they want to composite with, as large as they can find but it's not that important. Some sites they might find free stock photos on:

www.sxc.hu
www.morguefile.com
www.public-domain-photos.com
deviantart.com

google images is probably the place to start looking though, without copyright restrictions they can use all the images I wasn't able to. They can be as obscure as they want, but if they have some sort of obstacle in them that would be cool. If all else fails I've still got the images I used but it would be nice if they have a bit of involvement in the process.

I'll bring the photos from the blue screen shoot that I used for the concept art for them to cut out and I'll put together some sort of reference sheet for the tools used.

My mobile number is xxxxxxxxxxx

cheers, matt


Dave Bentick - did you get your business cards printed yet?

Invite List (so far)

Hi Jo,

Here's my invite list so far…

Industry: Sony Computer Entertainment, Evolution, Brahm, Alexander MacGregor, Palfrey Greer, Sparkle Media, Smiling Wolf
College: Marianne McCracken [CRM], Brian Dean [Director of Arts], John Frodsham [Director], Carmen Wills [Dep. Principal], Pat Bacon [Principal], Millard Parkinson [CRM]
Other: Mark Smith [ICDC], Gary Peploe [MMU], Dr Chris Speed [ECA], Dr Sophia Lycouris [ECA], Dr Mark Wright [ECA], Ivan Drummond [Napier University], Tracy Lannon [University of Huddersfield], Justin Thompson [University of Huddersfield],
Ian Jackson [Art in Liverpool]

That covers about 25 invites in all, 2 per invite = 50 people (but not all will come). Who do you want to invite?

Endgame

Hi Jo,

Just a quick progress report…

• Rendered footage handed over to Adam for editing
  
• Adam has someone lined up to score the video
  
• Invites should be ready by Tues at latest. Send out by end of next week.
  
• FACT technical stuff is sorted. 14th is good to hand in the video to them.
  
• I'll start on the DVD itself this weekend whilst working on the website.
  
• How is your content coming along?
  
• I'm behind on some of the academic work I intended.
  
• We can still add content after website launch. It will ensure people visit the site again and again.
  

I think that's all for now :-)

Don't be square daddio…

Hi Matt,

As I said earlier the definition of the divided blocks of colour needs breaking down, like with the white paint explosion effect used on the invite.

The logos need to be bigger so maybe move them up to the space on the left. The current text byline is visually ok but needs rewording/expanding into the space now vacated by the logos:

A CG video for Liverpool Biennial 2008 created in collaboration between De La Salle High School's art department and undergraduate students from
St Helens College's degrees:

BA(Hons) Entertainment Media Design
FdA Computer Game Design
FdA Graphic Design

Here's a suggestion with the text below but use your instinct…



I'll call in to see that guy tomorrow to sort out invites. What's his name?