Question 4

Question 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

During the research stage of my productions, I used many different technologies. The research was mainly conducted using “cloud” software, meaning that information gathered from shared spaces on the internet. The internet was invaluable in successfully fulfilling the brief of the task of creating a music video and ancillary texts for an unsigned British band.

My research was conducted frequently on video websites such as YouTube to find and analyse music videos and the work of other artists and bands, similar to my artist in genre. For instance, I watched and studied the videos of Ed Sheeran, Plain White T’s, Ben Howard, and Bon Iver, in order to gain inspiration and ideas for my own music video.

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YouTube proved a highly useful source of research, as with features such as User Comments, Ratings, and number of views. All these features indicate the effectiveness of the video, the popularity, and how much people enjoyed watching it.

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I also used Google search engine, to research other artists. Google allowed me to access images directly to inspire both my music video and my print productions.

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Google also allowed me to find artists’ official websites, which allowed me to directly access photos, videos, track and information about the artist or band. This allowed me to expand my research.

I used some similar media technologies when planning my productions. For instance, I accessed the “cloud” once more to search for my artist, Daniel Cope. I used websites such as YouTube and MySpace in particular to find the artist as these sites allowed to me listen to and download his tracks for free. Here is a snapshot of Daniel’s MySpace page:

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I looked at the website for Latitude Festival and various other festivals to get inspiration for both my music video and print productions are for general research into the styles of the audiences for this festival.

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This also shows another media technology I used: Microsoft Publisher. I used this software to digitally annotate images, such as the latitude screenshot seen above. I also used it when designing products, such as my magazine advert. It allowed me to move components around freely, which aided the design process. I also used the same functions to create a mood board on costume to help in the design of the artist’s costume.

Another example of software I used when designing the print productions section of my work was Adobe Photoshop. This software allowed me to play with and adjust my images freely, so I could choose which effects worked best and suited the genre the most.

I used photoshop to digitally edit my drawing plan for my advert.

Example of an experiment using photoshop

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I also used YouTube, not only to search for videos by others, but to upload my own videos. I did this when constructing the ending to my music video, and had come up with two slightly different ones. By uploading them both to YouTube, I could post them both on my blogger account, and share them with others to gain their opinions on which worked best and why.

A final example of a website I used during my planning was DaFont.com. This website shares downloadable different fonts that aren’t accessible through normal software. The website allowed me to search through the fonts and download many different ones, so I could apply them to my work and see visually which worked best with the images.

Another technology I used, which is different from those already mentioned because it is non-computer based, is the stills camera. I used a Nikon digital SLR camera to take photos of planning such as costumes and location shots. I also used this camera to take loads of photos during numerous photo shoots, to plan and experiment for the print productions.

After drawing my plans for both the music video and the print productions, I used scanners to transfer them on to the computer.

A final use of technology was on Adobe Premiere. My initial planning involved using a split-screen effect in my music video. I used Adobe Premiere to try this out and experiment with positioning and composition, however after seeing how it looked when experimenting, I decided against the idea entirely.

The construction of my texts only included a small number of media technologies, indicating that the largest use of media technology was during the planning and research stages of the course.

The first technologies I used in the construction of the final products were the cameras. I used a digital moving image camera to capture the footage for the music video. The digital camera was invaluable when filming as it allowed us to review and re-watch the footage we’d just taped. This allowed us to see if the footage was usable and what improvements could be made to it.

This is the same for the stills camera. Again, I used a Nikon digital SLR. The large LCD screen allowed me to easily review each photo during the shoot, letting me adjust the next photos appropriately to get the best image possible. Also, the SLR camera took photos in fantastic quality to provide a professional look.

The software I used for the editing of my music video was Adobe Premiere. Using this software allowed me to string together each shot and move them around to suit the video. It allowed me some freedom with the narrative, so I could pick and change the order however I wanted. The software also allowed for some great effects. I used transitions a lot between shots, as this linked the shots smoothly. One in particular is the cross dissolve. This dissolve meant was placed in between two shots, and meant that the first shot faded out as the second shot faded in. This suited the soft tone of the track. I often only used this transition when the beat of the track was smooth and slow, and allowed a natural change in shot for the sharper beats. Here are a couple of examples of these transitions:

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Another similar transition is dip to black. This is placed at the end of a shot, and means that the shot is allowed to fade out into black before the next shot fades in. Here is an example of this in use:

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The software also allowed me to adjust the transparency of the shots, which allowed me to place one shot over the other. I liked this effect, as it not only created a nostalgic and thoughtful image, it also made some often rather boring and long shots much more interesting and pleasing. Here are examples of how I used this:

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The Adobe Premiere software allowed me also to change the colour of separate shots. I chose to use both black and white and colour in my music video to separate reality from day-dream, so the beginning shots of my artist sitting alone at the train station are in black and white, colour was used as the story played, and black and white was used again at the end, when the artist steps off the train and out of his day-dream.

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However, the ending of the music video doesn’t stay entirely black and white. I used another technique to dissolve a shot from black and white in to colour, as the girl walks back into the artist’s life. I did this by cutting the shot in half, where I wanted the transition to occur. I made the first half of the shot black and white, and the second half colour. I then added a cross dissolve, as mentioned above, in between the two halves of the shot. This allowed the shot to change from black and white in to colour seamlessly and smoothly. Here’s a snapshot of this:

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For the print productions part of work, I used Adobe PhotoShop CS4 to edit the images. This software allowed me complete freedom with the edit of my images. I used many techniques with the edit of my digipak and magazine advert. To start with, I adjusted brightness and contrast of my images to sharpen. I’ll use the image from panel 1 of my digipak to demonstrate this:

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I’d then crop the image to the size I wanted, taking into account the rule of thirds to create empty space and allow the eye to be drawn to the place of importance (the artist’s face).

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Using PhotoShop, I could experiment with use of colour styles. I could use black and white:

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Or, as I used in my digipak, I could use the vintage style. This technique was slightly more complicated. I’d add two new fill layers, one completely yellow and one completely blue, as seen here:

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I’d then change the layer style of the yellow layer to “Darken”, and the layer style of the blue layer to “lighten”, and adjust the opacity of both layers, allowing the image, which is below these layers, to be seen through them. The addition of these two colours together creates this image, where the whites of the image are tinged yellow and the blacks of the image are tinged blue.

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Another, yet more complicated effect I used in the production of panel 1 was the addition of the artificial light streak. This was achieved by creating a path, using the pen tool <!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--> and applying a brush stroke to this path. I then adjusted the path, using outer glows to create a light streak. It was very effective on the image. I also added a lens flare where the two light streaks met, just to add a bit more glare to the streaks.

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When it came to creating my magazine advert, I used yet more effects on lighting. This time, I used a new technique called lighting effects. This allowed me to add a directional light to the image, to make it seem as though a very bright spotlight was shining from one angle out of shot. The effect was brightening the left side of the image and shadowing the right side of the image. This was very effective at creating the sense of isolation I was looking to achieve:

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PhotoShop also allowed me to add writing and other institutional information to my images where necessary as seen above.

The final stage of the task was writing the evaluation. To do this I mainly use Microsoft Word. I wrote each question on this as it allowed me to spot spelling mistakes and keep check the word count. I then copied the answers in to a new post on my blogger account. The blogger system allows my work to be exhibited and accessed by others. It also allowed me to insert my images into each question.