Monday, 30 January 2012
Friday, 9 December 2011
How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
First of all, the main piece of technology we used was Blogger, this has enabled us to express all of our ideas, problems, and processes we have gone through to create our final product. Using blogger has allowed us to share information with eachother, post feedback on peer's blogs, and looks at other peoples work which are all pretty important parts of the whole process, it has also allowed us to keep on top of our work as our schedules are on the blog. Blogger has been the main centre piece of our work as all of the other tehcnologies we have used e.g. Animoto, Scribd etc. can all be embedded on here which is helpful when it comes to presenting our work in creative and detailed ways.
The camera we used to film our music video was a Canon EOS 550D, we had other options which included a Sanyo HD Camcorder which was 1080p, but the Canon had the best resolution which is why we chose to use it. he camera was the perfect choice touse as all of our footage came out crystal clear and looked really good, however, because of the such high resolution of the camera, it took up alot of space when trying to transfer onto Emma's computer, within 100 shots just under 6GB of memory had been taken up, this resulted in us having to take out the external hardrive from schooland transfer it through and consequently having to convert the footage.
Social Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were used in order to promote our artist Eve T and to allow her to interact with her audience, one way of this was by putting 'tweets',we did this so our whole process seemed more realistic and to allow Eve to create a realtionship with her audience.
Throughout our research and planning we used technologies such as Animoto and Scribd to present our work in a more creative manner, using Animoto helped us throughout as it helped us create our pitch, which we received very positive feedback on, and to complete tasks on the schedule list which maybe needed presenting in a different format a written essay. Scribd allowed us to present our photo shoot with Eve in a very simple way, it also kept the images in one place which was convenient when looking for images to use in our digipacks and magazine advert etc.
Youtube was used to post our draft and final videos on, we used this because it was the easiest way to access our video and the fact that we could get feedback on it from people who had seen in on the internet, using Youtube allowed us to embed it onto the blog without any hassel,and also to postit onto our personal twitters and facebook's to get feedback from our friends.
During the editing process we started to use Adobe premier, which is quite complex to use, we were considering using Adobe After Effects to add additional effects and to improve some of the shots in our video, but,due to the complexity of the programme and how strapped we were for time we were advised not to use it as it was a very time consuming programme to learn to use. Half way through the process, Emma got a MacBook Pro, which was very helpful, we ended up transferring all of our footage onto her new laptop and starting again, which meant we changed the editing software we were using. We ended up using iMovie to edit our video, which was much easierto use than Adobe Premier.
I used my iPhone 4 throughout the process of filming as it has the song we were using on it, this was needed when we were filming certain shots and because it is portable we were able to carry it everywhere, this was the easiest and most convenient way to access the song and it helped us alot when we were filming our location shots down by the lake.
I used Photoshop CS5 to create both of my ancillary products, this allowed me to create a digipack and a magazine advert easily and to be able to produce work to an acceptable standard. Photoshop allowed me to edit and enhance photos to use for my products and madethe whole alot easier, even though i had some issues when printing out my work (the quality was very poor) i feel that Photoshop CS5 helped me producework which i am proud of and represents my artist in a manner so that people would want to purchase her work.
The technology we used throughout the process allowed us to produce research and planning work to a good level, and also allowed us to film in such high resolution to create a music video which was filmed to an excellent standard.
The camera we used to film our music video was a Canon EOS 550D, we had other options which included a Sanyo HD Camcorder which was 1080p, but the Canon had the best resolution which is why we chose to use it. he camera was the perfect choice touse as all of our footage came out crystal clear and looked really good, however, because of the such high resolution of the camera, it took up alot of space when trying to transfer onto Emma's computer, within 100 shots just under 6GB of memory had been taken up, this resulted in us having to take out the external hardrive from schooland transfer it through and consequently having to convert the footage.
Social Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were used in order to promote our artist Eve T and to allow her to interact with her audience, one way of this was by putting 'tweets',we did this so our whole process seemed more realistic and to allow Eve to create a realtionship with her audience.
Throughout our research and planning we used technologies such as Animoto and Scribd to present our work in a more creative manner, using Animoto helped us throughout as it helped us create our pitch, which we received very positive feedback on, and to complete tasks on the schedule list which maybe needed presenting in a different format a written essay. Scribd allowed us to present our photo shoot with Eve in a very simple way, it also kept the images in one place which was convenient when looking for images to use in our digipacks and magazine advert etc.
Youtube was used to post our draft and final videos on, we used this because it was the easiest way to access our video and the fact that we could get feedback on it from people who had seen in on the internet, using Youtube allowed us to embed it onto the blog without any hassel,and also to postit onto our personal twitters and facebook's to get feedback from our friends.
During the editing process we started to use Adobe premier, which is quite complex to use, we were considering using Adobe After Effects to add additional effects and to improve some of the shots in our video, but,due to the complexity of the programme and how strapped we were for time we were advised not to use it as it was a very time consuming programme to learn to use. Half way through the process, Emma got a MacBook Pro, which was very helpful, we ended up transferring all of our footage onto her new laptop and starting again, which meant we changed the editing software we were using. We ended up using iMovie to edit our video, which was much easierto use than Adobe Premier.
I used my iPhone 4 throughout the process of filming as it has the song we were using on it, this was needed when we were filming certain shots and because it is portable we were able to carry it everywhere, this was the easiest and most convenient way to access the song and it helped us alot when we were filming our location shots down by the lake.
I used Photoshop CS5 to create both of my ancillary products, this allowed me to create a digipack and a magazine advert easily and to be able to produce work to an acceptable standard. Photoshop allowed me to edit and enhance photos to use for my products and madethe whole alot easier, even though i had some issues when printing out my work (the quality was very poor) i feel that Photoshop CS5 helped me producework which i am proud of and represents my artist in a manner so that people would want to purchase her work.
The technology we used throughout the process allowed us to produce research and planning work to a good level, and also allowed us to film in such high resolution to create a music video which was filmed to an excellent standard.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
In relation to feedback, most of the feedback that we have actually had has been very positive. The feedback on our pitch was the best we had in terms of positivity and less scrutiny as the initial idea obviously appealed to alot of people in the room. As research and planning went on, obviously we recived more constructive critisism so it helped us to try and improve on aspects that people thought were weaker than others.
For our video we received a very mixed range of feedback, the lowest mark we recived was 4/10 which we thought was a little bit uncalled for! The majority of feedback we received though was good and people had picked up on points which they thought could have gone a little bit smoother than what they did in the video which was fine, e.g. 'the editing is too fast paced' and 'the lip syncing doesn't match perfectly', in terms of the editing being too fast paced, from the start we has the idea that we wanted to create a video that had fast paced editing in it to go with the pace of the music, the genre was dance/ hip-hop which generally isn't slow music, and we thought that the pace of the song and certain parts of it would suit having very fast paced editing.
In our draft, there weren't many shots which lead our feedback not to be very detailed as there wasn't much to evaluate. One aspect which was picked up on many times was the frequent use of extremely quick shots, looking back the shots are very quick but due to the issues we had when trying to film we hadn't got much to work with for the draft. Considering the few issues we had with our artist, we ended up having to sacrifice one of our locations, which was the field, and due to being cancelled on last minute there were also occasions where we were at the location and we had a phone call saying that they couldn't make it, this pu us at a disadvnatage as we didn't have as many shots as we would have liked in order to complete our video to it's full potential.
When we were evaluating peers work in class not to long ago, everyone received feedback and a mark out of 10 for their music video. Apart from a select few our video recived mostly 7 and 8/10 which we were very happy about, some of the comments from our peers included how they liked the contrast of effects which we included in our video, and the range of shots that we had and how good they were, overall we were very happy with out feedback apart from 3/4 people that gave us a 4/10. Thankfully not one person said that they didn't like our video, which is good considering that the genre we picked wasn't for everyone.
In our draft feedback these were the main points picked up on by Mr Ford-
For our video we received a very mixed range of feedback, the lowest mark we recived was 4/10 which we thought was a little bit uncalled for! The majority of feedback we received though was good and people had picked up on points which they thought could have gone a little bit smoother than what they did in the video which was fine, e.g. 'the editing is too fast paced' and 'the lip syncing doesn't match perfectly', in terms of the editing being too fast paced, from the start we has the idea that we wanted to create a video that had fast paced editing in it to go with the pace of the music, the genre was dance/ hip-hop which generally isn't slow music, and we thought that the pace of the song and certain parts of it would suit having very fast paced editing.
In our draft, there weren't many shots which lead our feedback not to be very detailed as there wasn't much to evaluate. One aspect which was picked up on many times was the frequent use of extremely quick shots, looking back the shots are very quick but due to the issues we had when trying to film we hadn't got much to work with for the draft. Considering the few issues we had with our artist, we ended up having to sacrifice one of our locations, which was the field, and due to being cancelled on last minute there were also occasions where we were at the location and we had a phone call saying that they couldn't make it, this pu us at a disadvnatage as we didn't have as many shots as we would have liked in order to complete our video to it's full potential.
When we were evaluating peers work in class not to long ago, everyone received feedback and a mark out of 10 for their music video. Apart from a select few our video recived mostly 7 and 8/10 which we were very happy about, some of the comments from our peers included how they liked the contrast of effects which we included in our video, and the range of shots that we had and how good they were, overall we were very happy with out feedback apart from 3/4 people that gave us a 4/10. Thankfully not one person said that they didn't like our video, which is good considering that the genre we picked wasn't for everyone.
In our draft feedback these were the main points picked up on by Mr Ford-
- The shot variety is good but they are too fleeting.
- It's hard to discern whether Eve is supposed to be happy or sad.
- Lip syncing is out in some clips.
- 18 looks like a continuity error.
- She looks slightly awkward in some clips.
Looking back at the draft now i can fully understand were he was coming from in terms of Eve looking awkward in some clips and whether she was happy or sad, all of these comments we took on board and worked on them when editing our final video. In regards of the shot variety being too fleeting, referring back to my comment in the above paragraphs, we didn't have enough of the correct shots to put into our draft video and therefor had to use ones which acted as a substitute whilst we organised to meet up with Eve again. Considering these comments Mr Ford had some good points to say about our video which made us more positive in terms of the range of shots and the locations etc. We worked on all of the aspects which he picked up on and tried to produce the most professional looking music video we could.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
How Effective is the Combination of Your Main Product and Ancillary Texts?
In our music video and ancillary products we wanted to portray Eve as a sophisticated and versatile artist. By producing the work we did, i feel we achieved this successfully. When creating my ancillary product, i wanted it to relate to and create a similar impression to that of our music video, considering we carried our A2 product on from Emma's AS coursework, i feel i have grown to know Eve T as an artist and feel i am able to create products which i think represent her well. In relation the digipack and magazine advert, i wanted to depict Eve T as glamorous and sophisticated, which i why i stuck to a classy colour scheme which i carried on from my AS coursework, when creating the ancillary tasks i made many mock ups which i had to analyse and see which one i thought would represent Eve the most realistically.
When creating my magazine advert, i found that my draft was very weak, and after receiving very helpful, yet constructive criticism, i worked on the elements which were the weakest and tried my best to create the most professional looking advert i could. I also used the same colour scheme in my magazine advert as i did in my digipack, i thought this would create an element of continuity between the products. In relation to the music video, i think my ancillary products represent Eve T in the way which i intended to do initially, from the beginning, Emma and myself had different ideas of what we wanted to do with the digipack, backing away from our inspiration Ellie Goulding's dance genre, i chose to go interpret Eve in a different genre to the song 'Animal', her album Entourage features songs from different genre's and not just dance, i feel this creates a good contrast between the songs and shows the audience that Eve T is a versatile artist.
On the digipack cover, Eve T is wearing a faux leopard print fur coat, which i thought worked well considering the name of her new single was 'Animal', also, the images i chose to use in my digipack were ones which i felt would conform well to the 'male gaze' theory, in my feedback i was told that my cover image was a brilliant image to use for the kind of product i wanted to produce, but because the image i used suited perfectly, this also put my other chosen images under scrutiny, and i had to change them to ones which complimented Eve's flawless looks and looked good with the cover image. Because the image i used was such a good picture, we referred to it many times when filming our music video in relation to close ups etc.
Though the music video can be mistaken for the dance genre, the magical element which runs throughout the song help reduce the stereotypical element of dance music and creates a more dream-like feel to the song, which is also represented through the lyrics in the certain 'magical' aspects of the song. Hopefully the structure and style of our chosen song would appeal to a wider audience, this is definately a hard thing to do when creating a music video as people's judgement can be based on the appearance of the artist, luckily, our chosen artist is one which is very attractive and has the perfect dress sense to which we wanted to be featured in the video.
Overall, i think the combination of our main product and ancillary products work well together and help represent Eve in the initial way i intended.
When creating my magazine advert, i found that my draft was very weak, and after receiving very helpful, yet constructive criticism, i worked on the elements which were the weakest and tried my best to create the most professional looking advert i could. I also used the same colour scheme in my magazine advert as i did in my digipack, i thought this would create an element of continuity between the products. In relation to the music video, i think my ancillary products represent Eve T in the way which i intended to do initially, from the beginning, Emma and myself had different ideas of what we wanted to do with the digipack, backing away from our inspiration Ellie Goulding's dance genre, i chose to go interpret Eve in a different genre to the song 'Animal', her album Entourage features songs from different genre's and not just dance, i feel this creates a good contrast between the songs and shows the audience that Eve T is a versatile artist.
On the digipack cover, Eve T is wearing a faux leopard print fur coat, which i thought worked well considering the name of her new single was 'Animal', also, the images i chose to use in my digipack were ones which i felt would conform well to the 'male gaze' theory, in my feedback i was told that my cover image was a brilliant image to use for the kind of product i wanted to produce, but because the image i used suited perfectly, this also put my other chosen images under scrutiny, and i had to change them to ones which complimented Eve's flawless looks and looked good with the cover image. Because the image i used was such a good picture, we referred to it many times when filming our music video in relation to close ups etc.
Though the music video can be mistaken for the dance genre, the magical element which runs throughout the song help reduce the stereotypical element of dance music and creates a more dream-like feel to the song, which is also represented through the lyrics in the certain 'magical' aspects of the song. Hopefully the structure and style of our chosen song would appeal to a wider audience, this is definately a hard thing to do when creating a music video as people's judgement can be based on the appearance of the artist, luckily, our chosen artist is one which is very attractive and has the perfect dress sense to which we wanted to be featured in the video.
Overall, i think the combination of our main product and ancillary products work well together and help represent Eve in the initial way i intended.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Editing our final video
During the filming process we had a number of problems confront us that were out of our control. These issues related to the limited time availability that our character chosen to play our artist had to film. It appeared that even with careful organisation; there were still last minute issues that forced us to have to rearrange filming, therefore postponing our chosen days to edit. With this, our final filming day then had to be a thursday (a day before the deadline). Evidently Katy and I were aware that this was very risky; however there was nothing that we could do about it, therefore we had to work around this. When it came to wednesday evening, we were again confronted with another big issue that our artist was no longer able to film thursday. Again, this was out of our control.
Already the editing process had begun as we had already filmed almost all of the lake shots and all of studio shots. This left the field shots, which consisted of about 100 shots - a big part of our video. However with the cancellation after cancellation we made the final decision to cut out the field location. When looking at the lake shots, there is that sense of a field location due to the surroundings, so even though we were no longer filming that location - it hasn't been completely took out our video. To overcome our problem, we had to use the shots we already had to 'fill in the gaps'.
When filming the other locations Katy and I took a fair few extra shots 'just in case' which evidently came in very handy! On top of this when editing I prolonged some of the shots instead of keeping that 'fast paced' quick shot theme throughout the whole video to make up for the lost location. Some of the shots had to be repeated which in turn, is a good thing to create the effect of recognition and impact to the audience. To ensure we pulled off the video well, we repeatedly listened to the song to match shots to the music in order to create the right effect. With this I brought in the idea of a 'dream' which the music style creates as there's a magical sound to it. This idea helped when editing some of the shots to be more longer and fitting them in with the music so that they complement each other. This also reflects some of the feedback we received. I.e. keeping that same expression at the beginning (quite quiet, subtle etc) and then changing it when the music becomes more up tempo. The idea of the longer dream shots fit in well with this and it then allowed me to create those contrasting faster shots when the music quickened.
Another issue we had to resolve was that most of the quick shots consisted of Eve saying one lyric in each one. With so many missing shots we had a limited number of shots of her lip syncing. Therefore we had to select certain shots of her lip syncing very carefully which meant that we left some other ones out in order for it to work, considering continuity, throughout the video.
Overall, I am very pleased with the turn out of the video. With having so many problems I felt the way that we over came still aloud us to bring in the effects we planned during the editing process.
Already the editing process had begun as we had already filmed almost all of the lake shots and all of studio shots. This left the field shots, which consisted of about 100 shots - a big part of our video. However with the cancellation after cancellation we made the final decision to cut out the field location. When looking at the lake shots, there is that sense of a field location due to the surroundings, so even though we were no longer filming that location - it hasn't been completely took out our video. To overcome our problem, we had to use the shots we already had to 'fill in the gaps'.
When filming the other locations Katy and I took a fair few extra shots 'just in case' which evidently came in very handy! On top of this when editing I prolonged some of the shots instead of keeping that 'fast paced' quick shot theme throughout the whole video to make up for the lost location. Some of the shots had to be repeated which in turn, is a good thing to create the effect of recognition and impact to the audience. To ensure we pulled off the video well, we repeatedly listened to the song to match shots to the music in order to create the right effect. With this I brought in the idea of a 'dream' which the music style creates as there's a magical sound to it. This idea helped when editing some of the shots to be more longer and fitting them in with the music so that they complement each other. This also reflects some of the feedback we received. I.e. keeping that same expression at the beginning (quite quiet, subtle etc) and then changing it when the music becomes more up tempo. The idea of the longer dream shots fit in well with this and it then allowed me to create those contrasting faster shots when the music quickened.
Another issue we had to resolve was that most of the quick shots consisted of Eve saying one lyric in each one. With so many missing shots we had a limited number of shots of her lip syncing. Therefore we had to select certain shots of her lip syncing very carefully which meant that we left some other ones out in order for it to work, considering continuity, throughout the video.
Overall, I am very pleased with the turn out of the video. With having so many problems I felt the way that we over came still aloud us to bring in the effects we planned during the editing process.
Friday, 25 November 2011
Friday, 18 November 2011
New Location
Katy and I have come to the decision to change our original 'seaside' location to another location we came across. The original idea was to film at the seaside as is reflects a key part of the song. However, with already having trouble with arranging a time to film - due to Eve working full time, we feel that going to the seaside would be too much of an inconvenience and it'll be a lot more difficult to film. We also have to consider that if the filming isn't right, we may have to travel back which would put upon a major problem for us all and could potentially ruin our video due to us not being able to deliver our best. Therefore we have come up with an alternate location. When looking for an alternate location for our draft, we came across a lake that looked perfect in terms of complimenting our song and also the relating to the sea with the ripples and reflections. Although it is a shame to have to abandon our original location idea it's a lot more ideal and sensible to go through with using this new location. We've also considered the positive feedback we had from this location from our first draft so overall we feel that it will definitely work. Above is a clip of the location, with putting it against the music it's clear that they do not contrast each other and do work with the overall effect portrayed. This location will give a similar feel/effect to the original location.
Filming the Final Studio Shots
On Wednesday night, me and Emma met up with Eve to film our final studio shots. We booked the room from 7-9 and then shot everything and even filmed someextras which we thought would come in handy if we didn't like some of the shots. The filming went really well and everything went to plan, luckily the camera didn't lose battery this time so we had time to film everything with time to spare. We also planned with Eve to get everything else filmed this sunday, depending on the weather. We are hoping to have similar weather to last time, but obviously it can't be guaranteed. I've looked on the weather forecast, and it is predicted to be cloudy, so hopefully it will stay dry and we will be able to film without any issues. Providing the weather is good, come sunday we will have finished filming, which means we start on the editing process- i feel we have left ourselves sufficient time to get everything done for the deadline on friday and we are very much looking forwards to seeing our final video and everyone else's opinions on it also.
Wednesday, 16 November 2011
Draft Video Feedback
- The shot variety is good but they are too fleeting.
- It's hard to discern whether Eve is supposed to be happy or sad.
- Lip syncing is out in some clips.
- 1:18 looks like a continuity error.
- She looks slightly awkward in some clips.
Our draft music video had a lot of black screens in it due to the filming not being complete, therefore it was hard to judge whether to quick shots work or not. The quick shots was an effect Katy and I wanted to include in the music video as it's complements the fast paced music and adds to the idea of it being so fast that it encourages the viewer to watch it again. Tonight we have planned to film the rest of the studio shots which we will edit into our video in order to increase the amount of footage which will then make it a lot clearer to whether the quick shots work or not. Another point we are considering is the emotion and feelings being portrayed in the video through Eve's expression. We are planning to create positive and happier expressions when the music becomes more up tempo to help portray the further meaning of the song being about someone she is in love with. Therefore at the start (as seen in our draft) there won't be a mix of contrasting emotions next to each other and it'll work better with the song overall - emphasizing the impact of the chorus more. Further feedback we have received is:
- Positive opening shots - well framed and setting works really well. Some good editing.
- At the point 0.54 - be more theatrical/dramatic when throwing arms in the air - she looks uncomfortable (and is natural/at ease the rest of the time).
- Consider other props/setting/male to add interest!
When we come to film the lake shots again we will redo some of them to ensure that Eve is in the right character and does look comfortable. There are not many lake shots left to film so it shouldn't take us long to make any additional changes/shots. Next to the lake there is also the ideal field and woodland that we now plan to use as the setting works well and looks good. Considering the advice about adding a male character in the video I feel is a really good idea to add the element of male interest - it'll also work to form a more structured and clear narrative as the semantics of the song is around love and her love for a certain man. If we were to bring this element into the video it'd consist of short flashbacks of them both together. However, currently Katy and I both feel that it's a lot more additional work to do at such a late stage. It would also be difficult to create that chemistry between the two people - especially when we're working straight into the final video.
Friday, 11 November 2011
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Final Digipack
This is my final draft of my digipak, overall i'm really happy with the end result, and have taken in the constructive criticism i received and tried to improve it in as many areas as i could.
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Magazine Advert Development
Before handing in my final poster I made an improved draft from my first to help me develop my final draft. From doing this I've been able to further develop in order to achieve a high quality professional advert. On the 'before' advert I made the additional changes that I planned to do after I'd received the feedback on the first draft. I wanted to keep the same clothing in the advert, however chose to choose an image that comes across more stronger and dominant. In the first draft I felt that the lift of the skirt came across more fashion like rather than music. Therefore I've changed the image to a more forward and stronger pose - linking back to the how I wanted poses to appeal with Male Gaze through using Laura Mulvey's stronger poses. To add to the dance feel I've added a red tone to it which also cross links with the digipack bringing upon a repeated theme to the overall effect. I've also made the date bigger so the purpose of the advert is a lot more clearer and I've also used the rule of three for the reviews. I also switched the colour of the Animal and Eve T around as I felt that the orangery colour stood out a lot more than the gold colour. The gold colour works better with the Eve T writing due to it reflecting a platinum artist as a whole rather than just the single.
To further develop a professional advert I've redone the hair in order to achieve that glamorous, admirable look that appeals to fans. I feel that this change is better complimenting the make up and clothing in order to overall create that 'model like' look that people would aspire to be like. It also adds to making the artist more established. I've also changed the reviews to higher ones to sell the artist and I've also included my co-working record company logos in the bottom right. Additional changes I've made is the website; making it smaller and positioning it in the right hand corner so that it isn't on the artist's legs, however I've kept the iTunes logo in the same position to keep the rounded layout on the page.
Tuesday, 8 November 2011
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