My personal Read Festival experience has now been fulyl created using Google Earth and is ready to be explored by anyone who may choose to.

I finished the piece off by choosing to add the Youtube videos by using their embed codes on the description part of the model, rather than uploading them straight from Youtube. Having uploaded them Youtube meant that they wouldn’t have been noticed amongst all of the other Youtube videos already uploaded by other people. It would also have meant i would have loads of little Youtube symbols all over my piece, which didn’t look very good at all. Using the embed codes allowed me to put all of the videos under one section, all in place for the user to go through.

On each of the moduls i also wrote some text, introducing that model to the user. These were all of my own words, and they were about what that specific element at Reading meant to me, making it more personal and summing up what that part of Reading is like to me, as well as thousands of other people too.

The process of making this piece has been a long, and at times difficult one, but now that the piece is finished i can reflect on that process and appreciate it for what it was. I enjoyed the whole idea of this piece meaning something for me, as that is something that i haven’t really come across in a coursework piece before. I think this element made it that little bit more easy for me, because it was relevent to me i was able to research easier and give little extras of input here and there. I also wanted to do the artefact justice as it was based around something that is special to me.

What i have also taken from this piece is the fact that i have had to learn different programmes and systems. Never before this module did i think i would be able to make a 3D stage or builing like i have done. This module has thrown me in at the deep end, but also shown me just how easy some systems are to use, and has forced me to find this out, as well as to explore a variety of programmes and systems i can use, which will come in useful for work in the future.

I may well have had to learn how to use new and different software in this module, but i am also proud of how i managed to use the simpler programmes available to me and make a good piece out of it. I was told at the beginning of the module that it didn’t matter what we used to make this piece, just as long as it got done, so i took this to mind and had no problems with using programmes as basic as Microsoft Paint. The reason i am proud of this is because i genuinely think i have demonstrated that you don’t need to be a computer genius who can use any programme put infront of you to make something really good. You can make a really good piece if you do the best that you can within your capabilities and not everything needs to be done the complicated way.

In conclusion, i am happy with my piece and i hope that others will enjoy it also with its forms of interactivity. I have enjoyed making it and have learnt a lot along the way.

The videos contain stuff from people’s personal videos of performances to random television interviews around the festival. This means if i was now upload my YouTube videos in the same way then you would not know which ones are mine and what ones aren’t. I also don’t want other people’s random videos scattered around my artefact.

I am going to have to re think on how the videos will be uploaded on to the piece. It may well have to be as simple as putting the links of the videos into the description part of a tag. If that is the case i’m going to have to make the description parts more aesthetically pleasing.

When initially thinking of Paint, it may seem as if the pieces i am making with it are tacky and don’t look very good. But i think that i have managed to use a simple programme to make a good quality piece of my artefact.

This is original image i started with:

To start off i cut out the image from the yellow background using Photoshop as it allows me to cut around images easier than Paint would. As i am not that confident with Photoshop i then resorted to Paint. I copied the cut image and pasted it into Paint where i have it a black background. This was then ready to be imported onto my Main Stage on Skectchup.

All i had to do on Sketchup was “Import 2D image” and then place the image on either side of the stage. I was really proud of how this turned out and that it looked really professional on my Main Stage. I then thought that this could be incorprated onto other stages, to keep the authenticity throughout the main artefact. The way i did this was by covering the middle part of the sign in black, to more or less delete the original writing. Then i went on to Microsoft Word and looked through the different fonts to see which looked similar to the Reading text in the original image. Luckily enough, Rockwell Block is exactly the same font, so i used that by print screening the Word document with the relevent text, and put it into Paint. From there i simply made the writing the smae colour and made it fit into the appropriate gap.

Having these signs reoccur throughout the piece gives a running theme to it, making their mark on the Reading Festival. I am proud of what i have made with such a simple programme and like to think that i have demonstrated that not everythinng that looks good needs to be made with complicated systems and needs hours of learning to get a hold of. I have simply used a programme that everyone has on their computer and made some good pieces, which were neither complicated, nor too time consuming.

I created a basic avatar on Second life and strted exploring it’s possibilities. I walked around some portals, started to talk to people and see what was going on in this virtual world. My first doubt came when i attempted to edit my avatar. I thought that this would be the first step to making the piece relevant to me and that it would be relatively simple. This is not how it worked out. I selected all the different options on the editing of my avatar, which themselves seemed far more complicated than neccassary, but at the end my avatar hadn’t changed at all. This showed me that Second Life was going to be a lot more complicated to an amateur such as myself and that maybe it was not the best route for me to take.

I also then found out that i would have to pay for a certain amount of land on Second Life to then make my mini festival on. There are free areas, but they don’t seem to be very large or have the capabilities to host what i wanted out of the programme. I think it is too late in the process of making my piece to have to learn how to use Second Life effectively and make a good final artifact out of it, so i will definitely sticking with Google Earth and Sketchup, especially as i have done so much of the work already using these programmes.

I have a clear idea of how i want my piece to turn out now, and exploring with Second Life has let me realise this. All of my pieces now just need to come together for my final artifact.

I chose images that i thought represented my experiences of Reading Festival outside of the music element. The images show me and my friends having fun, doing things you may not do in other parts of life and generally having a great experience.

I then uploaded a suitable song to have over the images on screen. I chose the song With You by The Subways. I chose this song because The Subways’ performances were always a highlight for me. The track is live, bringing across the element of  live music at the festival. The only problem i thought i might run into with the track is that sometimes, YouTube block and delete certain tracks from videos if you don’t have the right authorisation to use the song, due to copyright. This happened with my derive walk piece, and if it was to happen with this video then i would have to resort to using something else. My idea would have been to make a montage of songs from Reading festival and put that over the images. Fortunately, this problem did not occur and YouTube has allowed the track to stay on the video.

They both look very proffessional and i thought they would look good in my piece. The first one though is perhaps a bit too big, just for an archive tent. However, the size of the stage could symbolise the epicness of some of the performances. The second of the stages though seemed a better option, as it would be simpler to fit into my piece and the whole set up of the stage seemed to represent the idea of a rock band playing there.

However, i changed my mind. These two stages do look very good, but i did’t feel right just throwing them into my piece without having any production in them. The whole of this piece is personal to me and i want to keep the production that way. In result of this, i created another stage, once again using Sketchup.

I believe this shows i have put more effort into my artifact and it has also allowed me to do what i want with the stage. What i have done is chosen a colour scheme relevant to Reading Festival. The red, green and yellow are the colours on one of my 2007 weekend bracelet for the festival. I then used the Reading 2009 sign template and put my own text in it using Paint to make an Archive sign, making it obvious to the user where they are. The shape of the stage is slightly different to the main stage to give a bit of contrast to the two.

I am now going to make The NME/Radio 1 Stage and the BBC Introducing… Stage next. I am choosing to not showcase the other tents only because as the tents showcase smaller, less famous bands, it is rare that any footage is ever taken inside of them. I couldn’t find any quality videos from bands at the other stages, so i am focusing on these four stages, with better quality videos and more content.

The next step is to make the NME/Radio 1 Stage, which is becoming pretty difficult at the moment. But i have been informed that the production of the stage will not be the main focus so it won’t matter if my stage doesn’t look perfect, the focus is more on the journey of the piece itself.

I will look for more pictures to add to the slideshow and add to these. I will then use a soundtrack over the top to make the piece less tedious, such as a song from one of the live performances, or a collection of clips from the festival. I intend to put this all together using IMovie. It may not be a complex programme to use, but this is the reason i am choosing it. I don’t have time to figure out other programmes and try to put all of the concepts together, so i will use IMovie to get it done simply, but still creating the same effect when it is finished.