TECHNOLOGYThroughout the project

There are four stages over this project that I will look at in relation to the different technologies used, and they are:• Research• Planning

• Construction • EvaluationEach of these also have categories within them that I will look at (mostly construction). But the next few slides will show the programs, or websites, that I used in this project throughout all the stages because of the wide amount of opportunities they gave me.

Introduction

Blogger Blogger was undoubtedly the most important piece of technology to me for this project. It allowed me to record and present my findings and creations and it did so in a various amount of visually-pleasing ways also. The great thing about the website was that because it was a website and because of all the tools it offered in producing a blog post, it meant the blog could be much more interesting and better looking than something on a word document or even on a piece of paper. At the start of the project I decided that I wanted my blog to stand out from the rest and have a uniqueness to it that many others wouldn’t. Unlike my A/S blog I focused a lot on the design of the blog (background, fonts, pictures, sizes & margins) because for me this was what made a blog look really good and stand out. Creating this template at the start helped massively because I gathered a lot of information about my blog because of how I personally modified it, and this made making blog posts after a lot easier. Embedding YouTube videos in and changing the dimensions was a lot easier, because I knew the width dimensions for the page that I had set up so manually changing it was simple.

This leads me on to my other love for Blogger; how simple it is linking with other websites and programs. The embedding tool and the use of the layout style ‘HTML’ made placing images, movies etc. a lot more extensive as I could create things such as GIFs or a powerpoint and easily embed the code into my blog. Furthermore, after Google’s  acquisition  of  Blogger,  integ4ation  with  other  Google  ser7ices  was  a  dream  to  work  with.

One other major part to Blogger that made it a dream to work with over other blogging services, was that it was simple. Although clearly the website allows you a create an undeniable range of things, on the outside of it the tools presented are pretty simple and this makes using it a lot more simple also.

Limitations There weren’t many limitations to Blogger, as many I found were easily solved, but still there was one major aspect that was consistently a problem. Due to how simple the service was there was a lack of design features that weren’t existent. The biggest problem was how certain images or text wouldn’t move and would tend to become magnetic to certain parts on the post. This was clearly a ‘wrap’-ing issue that could’ve been dealt on on a program like Word. Although most of the time it was fine in the end, it still took me a long time to get it right and how I wanted it to look. The rest of the limitations I found with Blogger wasn’t so much a limitation in its own right, but rather a problem with one of the tools. Many of the advantages that I had found in Blogger such as the automatic saving, simplicity etc. didn’t work out well for me 100% of the time. Sometimes the automatic saving wouldn’t work and because connection to the internet may have been interrupted at one point, my work was lost. Although this was rare, it was still an annoyance. But it does show that although there are many great things you can do on the internet it still isn’t completely reliable.

Final Cut ProFinal Cut Pro was my best friend through the whole of this project. I edited all of my videos, for research, planning, construction and through the evaluation stages, not because I couldn’t on any other piece of software but because I was so familiar with the software and it did everything I needed it to. I learnt so much as well over the time that I spent on it and created videos I never would have been able to know how to do beforehand. Therefore once again I used a piece the same piece of software that I had used in my A/S project, but this time I took steps to learn so much more about the program and use it for more than what I had done before.

Final Cut Pro has so many advantages to it that makes it the program that it is and makes it a lot better than other competitors. The first one of those advantages is one similar to Blogger and that is the simplicity of

it. FCP X saw a new interface to it over the old style where it looked a lot more professional. However although it wasn’t so technical and looked a lot like the lesser technological, iMovie, it still didn’t lack in being a professional bit of kit. I learnt that throughout this project. I used tools such as the ken burns effect and the trimming tool, to do things to my clips that I wouldn’t have first thought of doing. For example, in the research and planning a well as the evaluation stages I used the trimming and blade

tools to almost create a running script on the screen, while making the video look visually appealing also. For the construction of the video I used the Ken Burns effect to, rather zoom in on images - as it is typically used - use it to create my Dream World. I was able to make pictures dynamic within my video using this tool, and using the inspector along side it to fine tune bits and pieces made everything go perfectly well for my video.

For the construction of my video, as well as many other parts to the project too, I used different techniques to help me create subtle differences. Within my A/S project I used colour correction many times for my video, but I didn’t use it with as much intent and detail as I did this time. Previously I used presets to help make my video look good however I researched a lot this time on sites such as YouTube and Vimeo on tutorials and within my Music Video I feel I have purposefully used colour correction correctly. To get that colour correction I desired I used the preset firstly and then modified it manually, and even at some points had to modify it manually to collaborate with another shot’s colour, brightness etc.

Final Cut Pro cntd.

Many techniques like this were put in the video to make it look more artistic, but more so, more professional. I also use two black rectangular boxes above and below the screen to make the music video have a 16:9 cinematic feel to it. Furthermore, I used different frame rates of video at different parts of the video to also give the cinematic feel - using a 29.7FPS rate in the narrative parts to give a better filmic flow to the video. Finally, there is one last benefit that I’d like to emphasise about FCP X, and that is the inspector. The inspector, as previously stated, was used for manually changing things with such tools as trimming and the Ken Burns effect. However something that I learnt a lot about because of this project is fine-tuning green

screen footage with FCP X and using compositing tools on the inspector to make my videos that much slicker and creative. The inspector was that extra par to Final Cut that I overlooked a lot previously, but I took as an utterly new concept this time around and it proved to be very useful to the outcome of my video and shows how extensive the opportunities are in professional programs like Final Cut Pro, if you learn the right things.

Limitations Likely to Blogger also there weren’t many limitations to Final Cut Pro, because I used it at every different stage of this p r o j e c t I had come to grips at everything it could do. However what I would say one limitation may be is the large amount of steps I had to take to do, what one might consider to be, a simple task. Things such as adding a transition to an image on a layer above another. Additionally then, the main problems I found with FCP was having to add layers to solve problems. Granted, this did solve

many issues - such as trimming different parts of pictures in only one section and not another plus trying to put a layer behind something when trying to do animation - but still it was quite time-consuming when it possibly didn’t need to be.

Fireworks So as Final Cut Pro was my ultimate editor for the moving image, Fireworks was my ultimate editor for the normal image. Likewise to Blogger and FCP X, I used Fireworks more times than I can remember over the whole course of this project and I believe it truly has been a great

aspect to the outcome of this project. I used it to edit pictures such as the Location picture in planning, the mood board in research and I edited all of the drawn-pictures for my Dream World on it also. I also even used it to create titles for my videos edited in Final Cut Pro, and edited my entire Digipak and Magazine advert on it too.

I felt though that, as a program, it worked a lot better than others such as Photoshop for my needs. That wasn’t just because I knew Fireworks either, because I possibly would’ve been able to learn a lot on Photoshop quickly, but it was because I felt that the program was much more suited to editing graphics and graphic work. The interface was a lot easier to get to grips with, and it was very similar to Final Cut as it had the technique on the side and the editor below.

The things that I had learnt over the time that I had used the software aren’t that evident, but what I have learnt over that time still is very significant. My use of Fireworks has become a lot more professional and a lot quicker. I have become very familiar with the software and I know exactly what tools and what settings I need to do things at - such as a high or low tolerance for the magic wand tool.

I feel that although I am now very familiar with Fireworks and could create mostly everything that I desired, there are still many things that could make it a better software. I believe one of the main issues with it the lack of presets it has, and for this I mean a lack of in many different aspects. When adding an effect there are very little presets available to use to make something look better. There are some, but they often look tacky and not what I am looking for, and this resulted me in editing a few effects heavily to get the right effect I wanted - this was seen on one of the magian advert drafts where I had edited the picture of the face.

Fireworks limitations

There is a lack of presets in terms of the dimensions of ‘canvas’ sizes also. This didn’t prove to be such a big problem as I was able to look online and find dimensions in centimetres on things such as an A4 piece of paper and a CD album, but nevertheless it still meant the process was time-consuming when it didn’t need to be.

WEBSITES/SERVICES I used sites like these on the left throughout the whole project greatly because they were so easy to use and they held so much information to them. I used video-sharing sites, YouTube and Vimeo, to research into many other music videos and also to research into many different techniques within the other technologies I used; therefore they kind of acted as learning guides. I used the ‘Watch Later’ button to create a playlist for myself and this made things a lot easier.

I also used YouTube to distribute my videos to the online world, which I could also embed into my blog. This whole project was basically a time to use a lot of different technologies and learnt a lot of techniques, but to also learnt how to connect them all together to make something that flows and something that, in the end, looks great. I used the service Google Drive, and others such as Google+ and Gmail, to back up my information and send between multiple devices. Not only was this beneficial because I was able to have an online backup at all times, but also because Blogger worked really well with these programs. Once again showing the immense technological convergence throughout this project.

This logo on the left is the logo for a website called Gif.Maker. This website helped me with all of the stages (except construction) as it allowed to create a simple GIF file to embed into my blog.

I used it to create things such as the costume design for my character, so it proved to be a creative way of showing information through something that was dynamic. It was simple to use, I just had to upload photos and then change the settings, and in a matter of seconds my GIF was ready to embed into my Blog - to which then I could edit it like any picture (e.g. size and position)

WEBSITES/SERVICES CNTD.There were many other websites I used to help me throughout this project, as shown on the left. Prezi and Slideshare were vital services for me as they helped me a lot in the research and evaluation stages. They allowed me to present information in a unique and stylistic way. However, both of them do pretty much the same thing when it comes to the outcome: they both create or present presentations. Prezi is undoubtedly a lot more unique as the way it is used and works is a lot more interactive and animated, but I found over the course of the project that it was a program that should only be used for small amounts of information. Slide Share is a lot less creative as it simply acts as a YouTube but for presentations. I didn’t create presentations on SlideShare, I only uploaded them, but it still allowed to embed it in my blog and show my work to the world.

I learned a lot about programs such as Prezi over this project and it made me realise how prodigious services like this were on the internet and how you can even produce things just as good online now then you can offline.Another website I used rigorously throughout this project is DaFont.com. DaFont played a huge part in the creation of my products and at other parts of the project, because it simply allowed me to download different fonts that wouldn’t normally be on the computer to use. Although it was relatively simple, it played a vital part as the font choice was significant throughout and because I knew this from the start I found the fonts I wanted to use in my products early on. I showed the same fonts throughout my products such as Indie Summer, Indie Rock, and Headline One, because I wanted to keep consistency. But the easiness of the website made it all so perfect for this project - I could just press download and then install and there it was for my whole system to enjoy.Finally I used the website Soundcloud to upload my interviews for one of my evaluation questions. Although I didn’t use it much it was still very important and I found the service to be really easy to use and beneficial to what I was trying to do. It was a lot like YouTube, just for audio clips, but it was simple to embed the audio clip into my blog and because I knew how to use the blog I could change the code to change sizes and make it look great.

COMPUTER PROGRAMS I used a lot of websites to help me with a lot of things for this project but I also used standard Macintosh computer

programs also. Most of the time though the programs acted m o r e a s t o o l s a n d p r e p a r e d p ieces of information for the next step.

Preview and iPhoto were examples of these tools that I used. They were used simply in my construction part of the project as tools to prepare my drawings to be edited in Fireworks. I used preview to scan the images in through my scanner and then edited them by rotating and cropping to the right size. I then opened the images in iPhoto to edit the brightness and contrast. I could’ve done this in Fireworks but admittedly I didn’t know how to to a degree that was easy enough in iPhoto, so I just did it in that program. The reason I changed the brightness and contrast was because I needed to prepare the images to be easily edited by the magic wand tool in Fireworks, so I made the lines a lot more prominent and took out many specs across the page.

My next tool that I used was Pages. Pages is basically Word for Mac and I used it to create some of the text for my larger blog posts. The reason I edited it on Pages first instead of straight onto Blogger was because I could do it offline, but like blogger it automatically saves the work. Then, once done, I just copied and pasted the text into Blogger.

The final program used was Keynote, arguably the most important of the lot. Unlike the others, Keynote was the only program I could use to create what it creates. Therefore it wasn’t so much a tool as the others but it still was a part of the stages to another piece of software. I created my power points on this program, but I found after using it a while that when uploaded to SlideShare many of the fonts I had used didn’t work out. This was a limitation of course of SlideShare itself, but this was quickly resolved as instead of me uploading it as a powerpoint I uploaded it as a PDF file.

COMPUTER PROGRAMS CNTD.This icon in the left is the logo for the program Evernote. Evernote is up there with Fireworks, Final Cut and Blogger for how useful it was for my project. I used Evernote to keep track of everything I did and everything I needed to do. I created to-do lists, notes, mock scripts and more on it, and the greatest thing about it is that the program runs on multiple devices. I linked it up to my phone and synced the accounts, and this meant that if I was out and about and had an idea for media I could just put it straight on there and when I got home it would be there on my computer. Evernote kept me on track and made everything simpler it terms of organisation and therefore was an essential part to this project.

Production - Cameras & Equipment

!There weren’t many limitations to the cameras and equipment but as anything else there were still some that had an effect on the progress of the project. They were just simple things really - batteries running out, SD cards becoming full, wrong format (resulting in conversion) - but they still took its toll on us but subsequently the experience didn’t lessen what we learnt from it it only helped us better for the future, and because there were so many scenes to record, by the end everything went fine.

This is the part where the extensive use of the computer and the internet to create things comes to an end. As the construction of my video was the most important part to the project, I used a wide range of equipment and technology to capture it to the best I could. The research and planning led up to this point and that’s why I needed the best I could get, or the best for what I needed. The cameras and mounts produced perfect quality video for the project and the equipment we used with it helped create the perfect shots also. Although moving away from the computer side of things, we didn’t move away from the digital side of things with the cameras. We used a Digital SLR or more so SLT. The SLT-A57 from Sony was just like any other DSLR with the same quality etc. but the bits inside were controlled digitally instead of mechanically and this was a big advantage for us recording all of the scenes as the shots were meant to be dynamic. It was helpful because the digital side meant there was much faster digital auto focus when recording and this meant all we had to do when recording was concentrate on the look of the shot and not the technical sides to the camera.

Online vs. Offline I have talked a lot through this presentation about the advantages of things online and programs on the computer, but over the project I still used a lot of things offline to help me. through the research I didn’t just use YouTube videos or films, I also went to the library to gather books to help me. Although old fashioned, the books offered a lot more sometimes that helped me with how to create a music video or what it should be like etc. because the information was all there right in front of me and not scattered around the internet on different webpages. Therefore sometimes using books still proved to be a little bit less time consuming.

Another way in which I tried to merge to benefits of both being offline and online is in the creation of my Dream World. I firstly hand drawn the drawings and then scanned them in. This was a lot quicker for me to do than to try and create the animation on the computer and therefore once again showed that being offline sometimes helps.

Conclusively then I tried greatly to try and combine the two concepts together as I believe the technologies from both, when come together, create something amazing.