Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question Four:

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The biggest change and challenge in terms of media technologies for me this year, was the hosting of work as an online, blog format. It was one of the first things to be set up and has overseen the project from start to finish. Though blogger was at first confusing to handle, the blog has proved to be a great way to display multimedia skill, an easy place to access work from anywhere and visually more interesting than showcases from projects before. The advances and changes to the layout of blogger also causes many problems as it took a while for me to adjust to the new format, however once I was an accomplished user of the new layout, I believe that it was highly beneficial, time effective and efficient.

Due to the fact it was necessary to expand into web 2.0 for A2, it was essential that I find a variety of other online mediums to showcase work on my blog. I began to use video-hosting sites such as Vimeo and YouTube to upload my music video, audience feedback, diary entries and also for evaluation videos. Blogger itself, proved useful for audience research and feedback through its’ own poll services that were the foundations of the majority of my early audience research.  I found YouTube was particularly good at hosting HD videos though it could be difficult to handle when uploading large videos to online. I would often have to export my video using a different compressor in order to reduce file size so that I would not have to be waiting around for large amounts of time whilst the video uploaded. Other online mediums include the essential ‘prezi’ presentation-maker. I used prezi for my resource audit at the start of the project and for analysing the work of music video director Jonas Akerlund– both necessary parts of research and planning. When I did similar product research or research into my audience, I would often display my results on Microsoft PowerPoint, this would then be translated to an internet version via sites such as slideshare and scribd, which was particularly useful when uploading documents such as hazard checks and model release forms. After the completion of my products, I would also Facebook Chat to gather feedback or post my video there to garner comments and “likes” to measure audience approval. I found online social media to be the most reliable and efficient method of feedback due to its instantaneous response and due to the fact its users are so vast in number. Furthermore, Twitter was an essential tool for gathering and communicating with my cast and crew as it allowed me to ask them when they were free and arrange dates to film with an almost instantaneous reply. At first I tried to communicate with each member of cast individually so that it felt that I was being responsible for the creation of the task, however this worked out to not be an effective means of communication and I instead set up a group chat on an app called ‘WhatsApp’ that allowed every cast member to frequently post when they were free and if they agreed that the shots were feasible. This meant I could communicate with my personnel concisely, efficiently and all together.

In production, I shot my music video and the photos for my ancillary tasks using a Canon 550D. The camera was also equipped with a cinematic shutter speed and the 1.8 aperture lens, allowing me to shoot in shallow focus for a more cinematic and artistic effect.  However, for one of the monumental and key scenes throughout my music video- the timelapse of the clock- I found out after my first failed attempts that the default timelapse setting on the cameras was not going to let me achieve the look I was going for. As a result of this, I took the action of downloading the software Magic Lantern and installing it on the camera by low level formatting the SD card and then resetting the camera. Once this was installed, it allowed me to set up an intervalometer of my own speed (which I chose 30 seconds) and then make changes to the aperture, shutter speed and even the picture review setting in order to save battery. I then placed all over 600 photos into a timeline on Adobe Premier CS3 and then exported them as a movie. Once this had been achieved, I speeded up the footage to 10,000% so that my video could show shorts clips of the time passing rapidly.

After I had finished shooting the footage, I placed it into Adobe premiere pro cs3 initially. I began and It was on this software, that I did the bulk of my editing. I cut up my footage using the razor tool and placed the clips together to the beats of the song. I did this more precisely by moving along the video and audio frame by frame using the directional keys. I also manipulated the speed of several pieces of footage – at times it was necessary for me to speed up a shot to fit with the music– most memorably in the ‘glasses filling up’ sequence, to highlight the party nature and maintain the speed of the video. At this point in the video I also placed key frames on the drum beats so that I could match the speed of the glasses filling up more easily and see exactly where it needed to be achieved by.

My ancillary tasks were produced on Adobe Photoshop cs3. For my digipak cover, I chose to play around with multiple filters that Photoshop CS3 offers until I found an artistic effect that I believed to be effective and that reinforced the themes and ideas of the artist and album. Furthermore, I believe that the most challenging page that I created was the inside right cover where I had to create a wooden effect for the background of the clock. Here I drew a rectangle and then again chose the filter option, however this time I selected render and then fibres and played around with the settings until I was happy. I then duplicated and edited the opacity of the image in order to create an efficient effect of time passing rapidly. In order to add the hypnotic effect of the background I started by opening a new document in Photoshop CS3 and then adding the filter of clouds under the category of ‘Render’. Following this, I proceeded to add more filters, and chose the Mezzotint option under Pixelate. After adding more layers, I duplicated one of the blurred layers and then twirled the layers at different angles in order to create a more aesthetically pleasing effect. This then allowed me to have more freedom with the Hue and Saturation dialogue box until I was happy with the colours.  I added text via the text tool and used the same font ‘Myriad Pro’ on every piece I made, to create a sense of familiarity and continuity.