2. Effectiveness of Research
• I found my research to be effective, I learned a lot from researching various key figures in the genres I
researched, such as Yoshitoshi Abe, Junji Ito, Satoshi Kon, ect.
• A specific example of their work which influenced me was Serial Experiments Lain, an animated cyberpunk
series with heavily psychological themes.
• In my research, I faced some struggles. As the genres and media I took inspiration from are relatively
underground, it was hard to find figures who had lots of information about them to research. Especially
since I chose to base my product on the Japanese vein of cyberpunk, it was hard to find interviews with
creators and even harder to find ones in English. I overcame this by eventually finding useful information,
and also translating articles with the help of google translate and pre-existing translations from fans.
• A part of my research which went well was contextual research because I thoroughly enjoyed getting to
delve into the creative influences behind authors that I enjoy, and analysing their creative style.
• Next time I would do try to research more mainstream sources because I feel that the struggle to find
information and being blocked by language barriers or general lack of information hindered my ability to
research authors to the extent I would’ve liked.
3. Final Concept – Does your production still
reflect your proposed project?
• Yes, the product I created fully reflects what was proposed in my proposal. In my
proposal, I intended on creating a cyberpunk horror game. I have achieved this
through:
• Visually, I featured a large theme of computers. The cover art for the CD case
features wires and a bright computer monitor, the trailer starts with a computer
start-up screen. I also went with a horror-like colour scheme, using dark moody
colours contrasted by bright reds.
• The narrative is very cyberpunk inspired, with horror mixed into it. It follows the
story of someone becoming deeply engrained into a digital world as a form of
escapism, but that digital world degrades into an awful world filled with monsters
and terror. I think this narrative follows the two genres of cyberpunk and horror
very well.
• The target audience of my product was initially young adults, this has remained
unchanged since my initial proposal.
4. Planning – What went well? What did not?
• Planning went well, I went into this struggling to think of what I wanted to create,
I resolved this by deciding to focus on my interests such as horror and sci-fi, and I
then decided to just mesh those two genres together. I also decided to base it on
skills I am confident in, such as illustration.
• A specific part of my planning which helped me the most was writing my
proposal, as writing it down my idea and fleshing it out in the form of a proposal
helped me organize my ideas for the project and the actual contents of it.
• I had to be realistic about what I would be able to manage within time
constraints, so despite any ambitious plans I had in mind for my project, I had to
ask myself if it’s something I’m really capable of achieving. I also had to make sure
my work could be done from at home or at college with little difference, to more
effectively work within the time constraints of the project deadline, and to do this
I focused my project on illustration as I have the proper equipment and software
to do so at home.
5. Post Production – what went well, what did
not?
• For my post production work, it mostly consisted of editing together artwork and video
editing. Overall it went well, but I did have to overcome some problems such as getting
used to Adobe After Effects. As I’ve never used the software before, I had to do a lot of
experimenting and researching to be able to create what I was visualizing in my head. I
learned a lot from this, and I feel much more confident in my abilities to use After
Effects. Something that took longer than I anticipated was compositing everything into
After effects, this was due to my inexperience with the software. Something that was
done quickly in post production was creating my CD Cover case, this is because I am
experienced in using Photoshop and this is something I have done before in earlier
projects. I feel the part which worked out the best in post production was my CD Cover
Case, I love how it turned out and I think the detail I put into it really makes a difference
in the quality. I feel the weakest part of my post production was parts of my Trailer
Video, I feel like I could’ve done more if given a larger time period to work on it. I wanted
to implement more like animations and effects and fake gameplay, but I had to be
realistic about time constraints.
6. How I dealt with technical problems
• Not many technical problems arose, although I did have to work around things such as rendering times. To
solve this, I’d do work that didn’t require much processing power alongside rendering my trailer, such as
writing for my game cd case. This allowed me to continue being productive, as I didn’t have to be held back
by rendering wait times.
• Due to thorough contingency planning and awareness of health and safety I was able to overcome technical
problems that could have arose, such as losing data due to poor backups or software crashing. I did this by
making sure I saved regularly and also backed up regularly.
• I also had to grow accustomed to frequently rendering draft snippets of my trailer. As it takes a lot of
processing power to give high quality live previews in programs like premiere and after effects, it usually
results in the preview playback being laggy and slow. To get around this, I would frequently render clips at
low sizes as drafts to see how it looked without having to sacrifice quality or framerate like in the program’s
preview.
• Storage size for files and sharing was something I strongly considered would be a problem going forward in
this project, I overcame this by upgrading my laptop’s storage to a size that could more than accommodate
large After Effects files and Photoshop files. Thanks to this, I was also able to render my work in high quality.
7. How I dealt with time management problems
• From the start of this project, I had to be realistic about my time management abilities. Working from home, I find it hard to focus
on things like written elements so I decided to split my workload between doing written work at college, and illustration related
things from home. This allowed me to have more hands on practical hours with less interruptions and allowed me to access
support for any written elements.
• Within my planning the element which took the most time to develop was conceptualizing my idea. This is because from the start I
struggled to come up with an idea, and ultimately decided to just mesh my interests in horror and sci-fi together.
• Within my research the element which took the most time to develop was researching existing products, this is because most of
the media pieces that would best help with my project were quite old or foreign media, and due to this it was quite hard to find
good information sources. The part which I achieved quickly was my contextual research, as I already knew about most of the
authors I chose to write about and I enjoyed getting to delve deeper into their creative styles.
• Within my production the element which took the most time to develop was the illustration because… the part which I achieved
quickly was producing my illustrations because naturally illustration is quite time consuming, and I produced a sizeable amount of
illustrations to be used in both my trailer video and my CD cover case.
• Within my post production the element which took the most time to develop compositing everything together in After Effects, this
is because I am fairly new to After Effects so I don’t know many shortcuts and I was experimenting with the software even
throughout production. The part which I achieved quickly was putting together the CD case cover, this is because I am already very
confident in my photoshop abilities.
8. How I dealt with emotional problems
• This project felt a little daunting at first, and the large workload made me feel quite
anxious and stressed. Despite this, I think I managed through it quite well.
• To manage the workload I used a schedule that helped me stay organized and keep track
of tasks I had to complete, this helped ease my stress levels as it’s much less
overwhelming to focus on a singular task instead of trying to focus on all of the tasks at
once.
• To ensure there was no technical barriers that may cause any frustration or worry I
experimented and put effort into learning how to use software I wasn’t confident in such
as Adobe After Effects, and also utilized software that I am confident in such as Clip
Studio. Because of this, I wasn’t too worried about my production ability.
• I found the guidance and structure of the brief easy to follow which highlighted the
timescale and requirements for the learning outcomes, I think that having the online
materials, communication access via teams/email and the return of face to face lessons
made me feel much better about being able to complete work. I am able to focus much
better in a classroom environment and I am also able to get immediate help from my
tutors if I need it.
9. Do you think you met the brief?
• Yes, I think I met the brief. I think the product I created tested and
exhibits my abilities. The product is heavily focused on artwork and
video editing, the former being something I am very confident in and
the latter being something relatively new for me. I think through the
artwork I created, I was able to showcase my ability and passion for
the horror and cyberpunk genres. Through the video editing, I
exhibited my willingness to learn and try something new.
10. Front cover design process
For the colours, I chose to use dark
colours contrasted by bright red.
