Eval4

Technology Throughout

My Construction.

Technology has been used in many different ways across a variety of platforms throughout the process of my work this year. From online

social networking to communicate to my audience, to market free

laissez-faire sites such as Amazon and eBay to Post-production

software like Final Cut Pro X even technologies involved in the pre-

production such as Blogger.Technology is a key component in media and especially in today’s

society. I’ll be exploring the ways in which I have used technology to help me with the construction f my

final product.

Let’s start from the beginning. For post-production I used many websites in order to display research, feedback and diary

entries. My main source was a online platform known as Blogger (or Blogspot). I used this website to log all my knowledge,

planning, research etc. It was really useful as it allowed me to express my work creatively and it was on a digital platform which

allowed me to access it from anywhere; making it easy and accessible to work with. I was able to create my own custom style blog to make it unique to me and my music video and I found this

aspect of the website fun and interactive.

DRAWBACKS:

As with everything there are limitations and restrictions to things. This applies to Blogger. It has many pros but some of the cons made it hard to let my creativity as loose as I wanted it to be. I found it hard to align my texts and images in a particular way, thus restricting my vision for my blog. I often found that I had to manually resize inserted videos from YouTube to fit and also slideshows to fit the width.

BEFORE

AFTER

Other online technologies I used to display my work was websites such as Slidely, Prezi, PicMonkey, Go!Animate, Slideshare and Emaze. All these sites were extremely useful and creative when I wanted to present work. I used PicMonkey for collages, Slidely to make quick slideshows with audio, Prezi for animated and detailed presentations, Go!Animate for a comedic quality, Emaze as another detailed way to present and finally Slideshare as another alternative to presenting work. These all allowed me to be creative.

Slidely Prezi

PicMonkey

EmazeGo!Animate

DRAWBACKS

Again, restrictions apply. Although all these websites are brilliant ways to display ideas, research etc. To use these sites you have to be computer savvy and if you’re not you’ll need at least a couple hours to familiarise yourself with the design and tools of each program. I was new to Slideshare and Emaze and I found it difficult to understand how each program worked. Although most of the tools are similar it is hard to figure out what symbol means what and how it works. It was also difficult reading my work on Slideshare as it would downsize the images and texts so it would have to be viewed in full screen.

Emaze layout

Slideshow Layout

Construction

Technology is ever changing and keeping up with the latest up to date equipment and software is important, especially when

trying to connect with a society of digital natives. For my music video the use of

technology was a huge component including my online blog to log my progress to the

filming process and equipment used and even my studio location.

To film my music video I used a DSLR camera (Nikon D3000) that would give me the ability to perform focus

pulls and would enable my video to be in high definition which is exactly what I needed as my video had to express a ‘crisp’ and ‘clean’ quality to it, especially in the studio shots. Using the camera was easy to manoeuvre and came with a SD card which made importing an transferring my footage to the MACs very simple and quick. I used the same camera to take my album and magazine images as again, it took very high quality photos and enabled me to zoom in and out and

achieve soft and harsh focus definition.

DRAWBACKS

Initially I found the DSLR’s a little confusing to use as in my AS year I had used a Panosonic handheld device which did everything for me with the touch of a button, but in less quality. However the fun part about using the DSLR’s is getting to experiment with

the manual lens and working out how it all works. Although this did draw me back a little on time I

found it much more beneficial in the end.

Started from the bottom, now I’m at

the top.

As my video was very abstract and minimalistic I wanted to include something a bit different. I used a green screen for some cutaway shots to infuse difference and keep the audiences attention. I used HQ background animations to overlay my footage. I did this using the software Final Cut Pro X and using an effect called ‘mask’ under ‘keying’. This enabled me to eliminate the green screen and replace it with the desired background.

Green Screen Test

My Music Video

DRAWBACKS

Using the green screen held a few difficulties. My original vision was to have a shadowy image with a animated background so it blended and didn’t look so fake. However, in order to achieve a decent enough green screen the subject and the backdrop have to be well lit and this meant I had to further edit in FCP the subject’s shadows, midtones and highlights in order to make the edges blend properly. While trying to use the keying mask tool it also made it difficult as it couldn’t detect the image properly due to the lighting not being bright enough this meant I had to fiddle around more in FCP effects settings to try an make it work to the best of my ability.

During filming I also used a track and a crane to achieve some of the slow panning shots in my music video. Using this equipment was difficult as I hadn’t used them before, however a track is pretty self-explanatory and meant using a tri-pod to mount the camera onto the track in order to move in smoothly in what ever direction I wanted. The crane was again another piece of equipment I hadn’t come across before and required some assistance from friends. I found that the crane was hard to move smooth enough without it being a bit jittery and it was much heavier than it seems!

When coming up with my music video idea I knew straight away I wanted something different from other college videos and through inspiration from people I watch on YouTube (BeautyCrush) I found a video which incorporated what I wanted to used in my own video. Smoke grenades. I knew straight away that using smoke grenades would give my video a little edge and so I used websites such as Amazon.com and eBay to search for some. Using the internet technology I was able to purchase my own and it made my video a whole lot more professional. However, the negatives to using the internet to purchase props is that it is a huge place and finding the right thing can be difficult. I ended up searching for days looking for the right type of grenades in the right colours and also trying to find Metallic gold paint and gold glitter proved to me a struggle.

Inspiration

Post-Production

The most important piece of software used for post-production was the program Final Cut Pro X. I used this to do all of my editing for my music video. The software was very easy to use and I was aware of the features due to my first year using in when doing my AS piece. I could import my footage quickly and drag them to the timeline. The tools such as blade made editing very easy and meant that I could precisely cut down the footage to the right spot.

I was also able to adjust the brightness, contrast, lighting and colour balance really easily to create a true black and white effect.

I used final cut pro frequently throughout my progress on multiple things. I used it for my preliminary tasks, my frame by frame and even to put together my own diary entries. It enabled variety and made my blog more creative. I also used Final Cut Pro to answer my evaluation question 1 to make it more entertaining to watch/listen to. I was able to add layers to show visually what I was explaining. FCP is a really professional and useful piece of software and technology that enabled me to easily use the variety of effects and tools to produce a professional and convincing media product.

I used another program called PhotoShop CS6 which I’m very accustomed too. I’ve used PS many times on many things so using this software was easy. I used PS to create my album cover, digipak and magazine advert. I used lots of layers to create smoother skin, I used the smart blur tools, dodge and burn tools and used it to mix brightness and contracts. I also used fonts and was able to create a professional looking digipak. I also used online websites such as DaFont to download all my font choices as these were free to use and I could use them on my digipak and magazine.

Distribution of My Product

Youtube was the distribution site in which I upload all my content too. I used YouTube as it’s a familiar website to me and it is one of the most popular and most often visited sites ever. YT enabled me to title my video, a space to describe the content, a place to put tags so people can find it quicker and includes a ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ button so audiences can express their opinions.

I used YT a lot when researching while planning. I was able to use YT to compare my video to others, to gain inspiration and to analyse and evaluate the genre conventions of my chosen genre.

Social NetworkingMy target audience were digital natives and digital immigrants who had recently converted to online social media and networking. After the movie ‘The Social Network’ it was clear that Facebook was a very popular social

network worldwide and if I wanted to target my audience I’d have to promote through this platform. I also used Twitter as this is another social site that communicates well with my target audience age of 18-25. These sites made it easy to share my work and allowed people to comment and ‘like’ my

content. This was really helpful when getting audience feedback during my rough cut and

digipak research.

I’ve discovered and understood more through this process that technology has played a very key feature in the production and promotion of my

music video. From start to finish it’s helped me form ideas, communicate with my target market,

understand genres and urban tribes and enabled me to experiment with different pieces of equipment and software successfully and professionally. I found my individual style and aesthetic really helped with my digipak and making me stand out

and creating an abstract music video.

The more technology advances the more we become disabled with understanding how things work but

this doesn’t mean we stop there, it enables us to progress and expand our ideas and creativity.

I’ve become more aware of technology not only in a creative way but also from a

theoretical perspective.