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‘Hidden’ has been uploaded
Just a quick news item.
Last night I received an e-mail from Sarah Wallbank giving me permission to dedicate the book to her late husband, and one of my lecturers from Bournemouth, Derek. She even remembered Derek talking to her about my visit to Leeds nine years ago and how enthusiastic he had been about the projects we discussed.
As Derek and I sat around the table in the restaurant, he could visualise how ‘Hidden’, as the film, could be made and was coming up with ideas of how to keep the costs down. It was having lecturers like Derek, who could inject so much enthusiasm and energy into his students, that has kept me going all these years. I know other contemporaries of mine who, even after nearly thirty years, still are full of a childish enthusiasm and sparkle that will never let them grow old. We’re all Peter Pan’s in disguise.
My hope is that I can pass on the sparkle, from the fire that Derek ignited in me, to the students I have had the privilege and honour to have taught in more recent years.
So, as a final note, ‘Hidden’ has been uploaded to Lightning Source and is dedicated to Derek Wallbank in honour of the encouragement and inspiration he gave me in college and beyond, throughout the course of my career. To Derek.
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Inspiration from Lynette Lewis.
I was checking my e-mails this morning and realised I had got a newsletter from Lynette Lewis. Who’s Lynette Lewis you may ask? Well, the video above should give you an idea. Lynette’s newsletter was also about ‘breaking your dreams into bite-size pieces’.
This Month’s Topic — Breaking Your Dream Into Bite-Size Pieces
I recently had the great privilege of speaking for MARS, a well-known company with brands such as Snickers, Skittles, Wrigleys, Altoids, Uncle Ben’s, and my personal favorite M&M’s.Working with this group of bright, talented brand experts was a bit intimidating. In delivering a “Building Personal Brand and Eminence” workshop I wondered, “What can I teach them about brand?”
Truth is, we all need assistance when it comes to personal branding, and one of the most effective ways to build it is by aligning it with personal dreams.
I introduced them to a tool I call the “3-D” Tool. This tool breaks a dream into bite-size segments that focus energies and time more effectively. Here’s a quick overview….
DREAM — What one dream would you most like to pursue this year?
What does it look like fulfilled?
How does it impact other areas (the Dream Dynamic i.e. ripple effect)?DIAGNOSIS — What is holding you back?
What resources in your current personal brand and relationships can further your dream?DESIGN — The 1-1-1 Strategy — Doing One Dream, One Step, Once a Week
I am rarely too full for a few M&M’s so it’s worth asking, “Is my schedule really too full to make a bite-size step toward one dream once a week? Imagine, 52 steps this year toward your dream. How great will you feel? How inspiring will you be?
You have a personal brand to leverage and a dream worth pursuing. Combine the two, then cut it in half, or thirds, or whatever bite-size you need to make progress. Small nuggets now, big impact later.
I’d love to hear if this resonates with you and what dreams you plan on pursuing, A few more M&M’s please! I’m cheering you on,
It got me thinking about how I approach many of the projects I take on board and what I had learnt this year from my students through sharing. So below is the e-mail response I wrote back to Lynette:
Hi Lynette,
Thanks for the newsletter. Breaking your dreams into bite-size pieces works. I have big dreams but over the years I have learnt how to achieve many of them with limited resources by breaking the whole into smaller component parts. It’s like when I was a kid building model planes, if I followed the instructions section by section I ended up with a completed model.
Using this techniques I have managed to undertake postgraduate courses, make a feature film (second in production), written two novels (current one about to be published) and published other people’s work, as well as holding down a full-time job as a lecturer, being a husband and father. The key to all these activities has been to breaking the activities into bite-size pieces and watching each grow into the dream. It also takes patience but it is always worth it.
Another part of realises your dreams, is that often the dream is the same for other people and by breaking the dream into bite-size pieces it becomes possible for them to share in your dream. This is currently being achieved in a digital feature film I’m working on where others are keen to help out but again maybe restricted in what they can offer. They get a real sense of achievement when given a small bite-size piece to work on and, collectively, we all get to share in the success of reaching our goals when the piece is finally finished.
So bite-size pieces definitely works and much can be achieved. Much can be shared and later talked about on reflection as new projects are developed in bite-size pieces.
All the best
George Kingsnorth
In this day and age where the bottom dollar is seen to be the most important thing in our lives, I think we need to step back and remember our dreams. In Lynette’s video she indicates how we as individuals seem to require permission to do the things we want to do. What she is encouraging us is to give ourselves the permission and go ahead and do it. What I have realised is that most people and organisations don’t want you to do what you want so they will not actively give you permission. If that is what you are waiting for you will never fulfill your dreams.
If you are interested in finding out more about Lynette Lewis, check out here website at http://www.lynettelewis.com/index.html
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‘Hidden’ cover – final version

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We are on the final leg of proof reading the text and now the final version of the cover can be revealed (above). In the end, I used a combination of Blender 2.49 (to build the model), Blender 2.5 Alpha 2 (to render) and Photoshop Elements 6 on the iMac to fine tune.
Let me know what you think by leaving some comments.
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Tagged Blender 3D 2.49, Blender 3D 2.50 Alpha 2, George John Kingsnorth, Gullion Media Limited, Hidden
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Revamping ‘Hidden’s front cover – part one
The great think about having conversations is that new ideas come out that help to transform projects. One such conversation happened this week, while Lenny Niblock and I were preparing digital videos for this year’s student film festival in Newry. The subject we were discussing was the front cover for ‘Hidden’. Lenny, a lecturing colleague, has previously attended launches of my first novel, ‘The Fall’. The new novel is science-fiction and the first cover version, Lenny felt, conveyed more of a nostalgic world from the past with the sepia tone image.
Over a cup of tea, we browsed the Internet for images of George Orwell’s ’1984′, which was a strong influence for my novel. We came across two novel front covers and the DVD cover for the 1985 feature film. The original seemed two dated and the more recent one came across as ‘too high art’. The DVD cover had strong blue tones and portrayed the cold perspective of the story.



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Another suggestion, Lenny made, was that I should emphasis my name and put it at the top of the cover as this is a way successful authors are promoted. Having discussed that numbers and text were a theme in the novel, he also thought a good idea would be to have text streaming down the side of the cover, also shown in the ’1984′ DVD cover, white words on the blue skin of big brother’s face. So, taking Lenny’s ideas on board I went home to spend the evening working out a few of his suggestions based on ‘eyes’, ‘imposing powers’ and the concept of ‘clones’ as portrayed in the story.
To start the process I began by sketching out a few idea using a pencil. The first was an ideas for a silhouette of two figures, to be used as a reflection on an eye. This concept was further developed into a glass pod used to cultivate human clones.
Something I wanted to explore in Blender 3D was how to produce tubing, so I added this element to my design. Though I am more familiar with Carrara 7 Pro, a 3D application I have been using since it was introduced about a decade ago, I have been learning to use Blender 3D to teach student on a range of courses. The advantage is that the software is Open Source and the students can download the software freely. Carrara 8 Pro, just released, costs around $459.99 so can still be a bit too expense for many students. However, most students would prefer to use AutoDesk’s Maya, SoftImage or 3D Studio Max, each costing over $3990. This is not necessarily a practical option, though there are educational versions of these packages they embed a watermark on everything rendered. With Blender 3D the software can still be used for professional purposes to generate an income, and then, when you can afford it, if you still prefer to use the more expensive software that’s your choice.
So, to start this project I used Carrara 7 Pro to open a figure of Victoria 4.2 to set the pose for my cover’s character. Once the figure was set, I then exported the model as a .3ds file. This seems to be an ideal file format for transferring figures between Carrara and Blender 3D and retain the texturemaps.
At this point in time Blender 3D is morphing from 2.49 to 2.50. The former is more stable, allowing a greater range of file formats to be imported. It has been a little confusing working between the two incarnations so for this project I have stuck firmly with 2.49.
Inside Blender 3D I created the glass pod and adjusted the figure to fit inside. A second pod was added to create thickness to the glass. I also attempted to use the fluid system to fill the pod but things didn’t quite work. Instead I used lights to create the illusion. After this, a base structure was built using the pod model to cut out a Boolean shape. A metal texturemap was used on the base.
From here I constructed a room for the scene and then used a Bezier curve path and a Bezier circle to ‘loft’ out the thickness of a tube model. The set of tubes were then given different colours and attached to the base and wall. A fluorescent tube light was created with an emitter surface to generate the glow and a shadowless light was used to produce the appearances of the model light’s illumination.
There are still a few problems but it is a work in progress. For instance, there is a shadow on the ceiling indicating that light is coming from below the pod base instead of it being set on a floor. Also I need to add the reflection silhouette of the two shadow characters, to add the sense of threat. The floor and walls need a better texturemap. There’s a lot more research to be done but the one thing I began to realise as I worked away, was that we are often made to feel that everything is to be hurried instead of enjoyed. Well, on this project, I’m doing things the other way round. I’m taking my time and enjoying learning the process. This research will be used to help develop the animation for ‘Monty’s Quest’ and I’ll begin to produce a few tutorials on how this project and others were created, in more detail.
In the meantime, please come back and see what progress is being made.
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Posted in Blender 3D, News
Tagged 3D design, 3D modelling, Blender 3D 2.49, Blender 3D 2.50 Alpha 2, book cover, Hidden, science-fiction
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Billy Dixon’s second recording session
Today saw the second session of recording text for Billy Dixon’s new book, ‘Stripping It Back’. It’s a non-fiction piece based on Billy Dixon’s successful presentations delivered to businesses, corporates, education and sporting industries through out the UK.
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Sintel – a new Blender Foundation Project
Each stage of the development for Blender 3D has been pioneered through the production of a short 3D animation. THe current project is ‘Sintel’. Here is the trailer.
More information can be found here.
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Tagged Blender 3D 2.50 Alpha 2, Blender Foundation, Sintel
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Southern Regional College Promotional Videos
Two promotional videos have been produced by George Kingsnorth, Alan Cunningham and Laura Kavanagh to promote various features of the college.
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Memory
A powerful short animation about the memories of how a robot witnessed the life of a young girl, seen after an apocalypse.
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Monty’s Quest – Scene 25
This video is a scene from ‘Monty’s Quest’, a digital feature film shot on a Canon EOS 500D last summer. This year we will be shooting more material using the new Canon EOS 550D.
Monty’s Quest – Scene 25 from George Kingsnorth on Vimeo.
The sound is still rough on this piece but we will eventually rework the audio after the entire film has been edited. As this site develops I shall be bring you insights into the way the film was developed, shot, edited and the CGI work that is yet to be developed. We are experimenting with a range of packages and hope you will enjoy the tutorials we bring to this site and that the information will help you on the path to producing your own projects.
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Big Buck Bunny
This is an animation that inspired me to start using Blender 3D. I’m a long way off from doing this kind of animation but it’s only a case of practise.
Blender 3D is a great Open Source application, which allows you to build, from scratch, characters and scene in 3D. This is a piece of software I have been learning and teaching to BTEC National Diploma and BTEC HND students over the past few years. Over the coming months as ‘Monty’s Quest’ develops, I will be adding clips and tutorials from the models we build. Hopefully, I will also learn a lot on the way and will share that journey with you.
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