QUESTION 4. HOW DID YOU USE MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN

THE CONSTRUCTION AND RESEARCH, PLANNING AND

EVALUATION STAGES?

In order to demonstrate my developed understanding of media technologies, I wanted to, throughout the construction, research, planning and evaluation of my media products, use and develop my skills across a large range of media technologies.

RESEARCH

To start my work off, I created a blog with wordpress. In order to set this up, I had to select a theme, as well as set up categories to help organise all of the posts. I had a slight problem in this as my theme stopped working throughout my time working, and therefore I had to change it to a different one.

Throughout the rest of my research I used a variety of programs, such as Survey Monkey, Prezi, and Slideshare. These programs allowed me to arrange what I had learnt through text and images in a more interesting way, and also making this information easier to understand through my use and positioning of visual aids, etc. I didn’t really have any problems with these programs as they were extremely intuitively designed. However to refine and develop my use of these programs, I would have liked to thought more about my use of fonts as many of these programs did not accommodate my use of different, less basic fonts. The programs instead defaulted to different ones, making my pieces of research not as visually interesting as they could have been as I often used the font to reflect my subject matter.

In my research section, and throughout my work, I also had to embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo onto my blog. This was a successful use of media technology as it allows me to show a wider context to my learning, demonstrating that I have looked into real media products, and the landscape that they’re in, and linked that to my own learning and outcomes. I also used the Snipping Tool to the same effect.

In order to learn more from my research about the actual construction of music videos I started by experimenting with filming and Sony Vegas by recreating a music video. I used my DSLR camera in order to film my music video, and through the idea of recreation got to experiment with using it, including high angle shots, and zooming, as well as basic camera settings such as aspect ratio, ISO, and depth of field. I also got to practise with editing with Sony Vegas in order to take my footage and turn it into a recreation of the original, including the trimmer, adding noise, a graduated border, and changing the hue/saturations. I also had to use Photoshop to make a title card as well, to better match the original video I was copying. Doing this, and using these new media technologies allowed me to deconstruct the aspects that made up a real media product, and therefore showing me what technologies and skills I could apply to my own media products later in my project.

PRE-PRODUCTION

In my pre-production I also got to continue using these same media technologies, pushing myself to experiment with them more in order to try out and develop my ideas for my media product. I continued to use Sony Vegas, and experimented with a particular editing technique which I thought would be interesting for my video. In this pre-production stage, I also chose to do some experimenting with using the Go-Pro to record sections of my music video. From these, I decided how I should record with this brand new media technology, for example how I should hold it for the best angle. One issue I had with the device however was shake. As I was just holding the device, and it wasn’t attached to another device (which would have acted as a stabiliser) I got a lot of shake in my footage. In order to get around this issue, I realised that I would have to create a slowed down audio clip (in Audacity) of my music, Stake a Claim, allowing me to run slower and therefore hold the camera steadier, speeding up the recording in Sony Vegas.

I wanted to use these editing skills and media technologies as it would make my music video interesting and appealing to my target audience. From my research I had noticed that these types of media technologies were used a lot in similarly marketed and/or genre-d music videos. Therefore, getting to grips with Sony Vegas and the Go-Pro would be important in creating a media product which would actually appeal to my market.

To further help me visualise what I was going to create, I used storyboards to plan each shot, then to see if it see the relationship between the visual and the audio, I created an animatic. This involved me using a range of media technologies, such as a scanner, Photoshop (to crop the scanned files), and Sony Vegas (to order and combine the images and audio). Doing this meant that I could create a “quick” version of my music video, enabling me to identify problems in order to make my real outcome better. Doing it this way, and using these media technologies instead of just starting film right away also meant that I could save time on re-shoots etc.

On this planning side of things, I also had to heavily use Excel spreadsheets. Using these meant I could easily create large tables of information and lists which would keep my production as smooth as possible.

PRODUCTION/POST-PRODUCTION (CONSTRUCTION)

From how I had practised and developed my use of Sony Vegas and my DSLR camera and Go-Pro during my Research and Pre-production stages, I found it easy to transfer these skills and use them in the construction of my own media product.

When filming, I took lots of consideration over setting up my camera, making the light as similar as possible throughout my music video, despite the fact that the scenes were filmed across many different days. I also wanted to make my shots as interesting as possible, like I had during the recreation in my research. Throughout my final video, I used examples of rule of thirds, close-ups, bull’s eyes composition, medium 2 person shot, and establishment shots. I then edited all these clips together on Sony Vegas, using things that I had experimented with earlier. Throughout my final video, I had to cut and trim the clips, as well as adjusting the hue/saturation and the levels to make the light and colour look better in the video. However I still feel like these clips do still look a bit “natural” and therefore to refine my product, I would have liked to spend more time adjusting these settings to make these look more slick and professional.

I also took the technical decision to set my aspect ratio to 4:3. I took this decision because I think it makes my music video look different, which would make it appeal to my target market. I also chose this aspect ratio to make my video look slightly older. The videos which I had looked at during my research mostly used the 16:9 ratio, making them up-to-date and modern, however I wanted to reflect the “old-skool” style of my band, and therefore choosing an older aspect ratio was successful in reflecting this. To take this further I would have liked to have added some noise to the footage, dating it further.

In filming the internal scenes of my music video, I also took a lot of care in setting up artificial lighting, especially on the shots which would open my film. To create this lighting set up I used one key light and positioned it so that the face of my subject was lit from the side, shrouding far of the face in shadow. This created an element of mystery through Barthes’ Enigma Code by hiding the main subject’s face, therefore creating another intriguing aspect to the narrative and concept of my music video. This is also why I chose to make this part of my music video black and white, as this would increase the focal weight onto the lighting, as the audience aren’t distracted by any colours, clothing etc.

I also wanted to portray this same feeling from my lighting, in my editing, and being experimental was a way to achieve this. Throughout the video I use techniques which I knew would appeal to creating this mood, and also to my audience, which I’d learnt from the other real media products I had looked at during my research. This included speeding up, slowing down, and reversing different clips. These key editing techniques really got this experimental nature across, however I also furthered this more subtly in adding subtle, and not-so-subtle glitch effects, this also linked my music video with the designs on my digipak and advert. I created fast flashing images and symbols by putting freezeframes or JPEGs onto the timeline, making them very quick, and repeating them over and over creating this effect. I also added in glitch filters such as waves, and layered these over other clips by adjusting the opacities. Doing this type of editing also allowed me to include more intertextual references (through uses of recognisable logos, symbols, and imagery), which from my research I know is very important in appealing to my target market, and also in creating brand continuity across all of my media products.

Alongside this more technical ideas for editing, I also decided to fade out to white at the end of my video, as I believed this would make my video look more like a real music video as I found lots of examples of where this had been done in real media products. I also had to sync each one of my clips to be in time with the music/audio track. I found this to be the hardest part of my editing process as lots of the clips were different speeds, for example the GoPro footage, or the subjects’ mouths weren’t very clear, and therefore it looked unrealistic that they would be singing. To improve this, I would have directed my actors better, making them sing the lyrics more clearly whilst I was filming, in order to make syncing easier and better.

During construction, I also had to experiment many times with the typography I wanted to use in my music video. I’d originally started with an Arial font, however I felt like this was too common and normal, especially with the more experimental aspects of my editing and concept. Therefore, I decided to use another similar, sans serif font. I eventually decided on Gill Sans MT.

In the construction of my digipak and advert I mostly used Photoshop and Illustrator. I started off by creating my main logo on Illustrator. I felt like this was the most successful program to use as I was able to make full use of the range of brushes, creating the best logo I could. To improve this however, I should have double-checked the size of my canvas, as I accidently made the logo quite small, making it harder to use it on a range of places, such as on my advert.

For the rest of my digipak and advert I used Photoshop to create each media product. I firstly worked from a template which I positioned on another layer then experimented with a range of techniques, such as smart objects, typography, layers, masks, etc. Photoshop was the best program to use because of its range of techniques, from the various different drafts I created for each product, you can see how varied they are in my use of Photoshop as a media technology.

Finally, to create the director’s commentary version of my final music video, I decided to use Adobe Premiere Pro. I decided to use this so that I could explore more media technologies, rather than just staying with Sony Vegas. Adobe Premiere Pro is also an industry-standard program, capable of producing real media products. Therefore it gave me the chance to use more media technologies In Premiere Pro I started with standard template tracks, but built up more tracks each time I added specific parts of my music video, as well as clips and images from existing media products, which I used to back up the points I was making, making my commentary stronger.

To create this audio track I recorded my voice using the software on my mobile phone. I positioned it at a tested distance away from my mouth, and tried to keep the volume of my voice as level as possible to get the best recording possible. I felt like I was successful in this, and then when I imported the audio into Premiere Pro, I trimmed the audio, cutting out mistakes, etc, making the audio as smooth as possible.

EVALUATIONFinally, in the evaluation stages of my media work, I used a completely different range of media technologies. I started by using Survey Monkey as this allowed me to more easily gather feedback from peers across all of their devices. One particular strength was that the survey was quick for participators, increasing the likelihood for people to actually want to do the survey, increasing the amount of data I could collect and use. One problem I had was arranging and sorting the long answer questions however. I got around this problem by creating my own tables in Excel Spreadsheet, colour-coding them to help me identify positive and negative feedback quicker.

I not only used my blog to answer one question for my evaluation, but I also used a range of media technologies including Prezi, Premiere Pro, recording software, screen capture, and Powerpoint. I chose to use these technologies because this is another demonstration of how I use media around me, and what I have learnt over the course of my learning, as they all require a range of different skills in creating a product with them. I believe that I successful in using these programs as they very clearly and easily layout my long evaluation answers in an interesting way, rather than just the same one repeated over and over. I’m particularly pleased with my use of Premiere Pro, basing the techniques I used off similar videos, as a way to back up points I was making through additional imagery taken from downloaded content, screen capturing technology or JPEGs. This was a skill that I used throughout my evaluation stage, including Prezi where I embedded videos into the actual presentation itself.