I shall break this up into four sections which are construction, research, planning and evaluation.
Media has been using convergence for the past 10 years, continuously trying to find a way of improving different technologies. Because of this, I felt it was important to different pieces of media like, computers, magazine, phones for our research as this would be the things we would need for our work.
Research
The brief states that we have to produce a music promo video, and the internet gives you endless information, especially on the website http://www.youtube.com/ showing different music videos as inspiration. The website allowed me to type in artists that have similar connections to Just Jack, for instance, Joshua Radin. Research is incredibly important in the second year as you have to find generic conventions of your artist and others to show good research that you are able to relate to, picking out elements but whilst not copying! Along with YouTube, Google was a search engine which allowed me to find further information about the artists. I particularly found myself looking at their Wikipedia page because even though people can hack in and change information, the box on the right hand side (shaded in yellow) shows what genre artists belong to.
From looking at YouTube, I could access his music and then find more information and see whether this promotes any ideas for stuff to go into my music video or why I would do anything differently. There were other artists from the genre that I researched, such as, Jack Johnson and Newton Faulkner, seeing different things that I liked in each video, and trying to bring them together, mainly basing it on a amusing video.
Blogger was also a huge media aid which helped me create an ongoing portfolio which I can put research onto and refer back to if/when I needed it. Having a visual plan which is in order allowed me to easily refer back to what I wanted without other people having to access it and people cross-paths in ideas. Blogger also allowed me to embed pictures and videos, another way of keeping a portfolio of my work and showing it.
Planning
Planning is one of the most important elements of creativity, which provides good material if planning is done, this includes the advert, digipak and video. There are several different pieces of technology which we are now allowed to capture instantly once we have thought about it, this also means that you can refer back to it, which is something I obviously found extremely useful, especially when (like me) it's easy to forget small details which make a huge impact! Obviously, the video camera aloud me to see whether re-filming was necessary, along with the camera for taking evidence of planning.
My mobile phone was something crucial, as it wasn't just me creating the video and so it was paramount to liaise with George as often as we could about various ideas. This enabled us both to instantly contact each other whether we were miles away at the weekend or whether it was to reminder about meeting at a certain place at school when we were both on the premises. Also, ringing the actors or George was something I did plenty of times! It was to my knowledge that some of them weren't as reliable as I hoped and so instantly access to communication with them, where response from both sides was instant. Just Jack's song which we are using is The Day I Died and so we had to download the music so we had it in the background to exclude George going out of sync. The music was downloaded onto George's phone.
There were plenty pieces of paper which I went through which express about different scenes. Within that it would say which actors I needed, props and the location it would be shot in (see title 'planning'). Even though the paper didn't give us instant access, it was kept in a folder which allowed us to refer to frequently, and taking it to filming dates which personally, benefited me as I felt reassured as it was material I could constantly refer back to if I needed it. All of the sheets of paper were put onto a word document, only the ones which I felt were useful and I needed so I could keep more on track of what I was going to do, and it was saved in a much reliable place were 'save as' is something I could take to my advantage.
Hardware
The iMacs were used throughout the process as this accessed all the websites we needed for research and planning. Obviously, the iMacs are used because they enable access for Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe Photoshop. The iMacs were a technology that I would/am on all of the time as I can be ensured that I will get the best success with the video, digipak and advert by using one of these.
I used a Nikon Coolpix L23 to capture images that I would need that would ultimately all come together and refer back to my video. The camera also allowed me to take photos of planning I did which can be shown as evidence and I have referred back to for my own benefit. Here is an image I took for research and then an image of how it was used for my video, so you can see how the still images helped me greatly in making the video a success. The camera was something I also used for my digipak and advert.
Opera is an access to the internet which was uploaded onto the iMacs which we could use. This was something I used regularly as this allowed me to access Blogger, Google, YouTube etc.
Microsoft Word 2010 was something I mainly used as a system to copy and paste from an image, to Word, to Photoshop and then onto my blog. I find Microsoft Word to be a brilliant software that is like the basis software used for Media Students as it is always a document you need to upload material onto other software. It also helped me draft any pieces of work I felt needed drafting, including my evaluation.
Blogger was evidently something which I have and had to become a close friend with in order to successfully pass my Media Studies A level. To me, it was like a technological portfolio which allowed all of my evidence and work to be uploaded onto it and refer back to it when I needed it. Because it is a media A level, it's nice to use as much technology as possible, and uploading your work onto Blogger is a brilliant way of doing this.
Construction
The brief states that you have to create a music video along with a advert and digipak that relate to the music video from scratch, therefore, this requires lots of different media technologies. When filming the music video, we used a Panasonic NV-GS500:
We also used a HDC-SC500 when filming infront of the green screen as this was in High Definition (HD) and contributes to good quality when using the green screen. This allowed the image to be a lot more clearer aswell, as having a HD camera filming George infront of the greenscreen, means you are likely to add a location etc onto the screen and so the camera makes it much clearer.I was also accompanied by a tripod as many of our shots consist of mid and wide shots which you need to use a tripod for. However, you should for all of the shots you shoot, excluding hand-held as you are trying to get the effect of it being the actors point-of-view. The tripod also allows the video to look much more professional as this excludes any shakiness or unwanted movement of the video camera.
The green screen was something we used in the last part of the song when "Just Jack" (George) is in a heaven like place where he is dreaming about all of his favourite stuff. This was one of the first things we shot as this was the main part that would make the audience laugh the most and so we wanted to get that done so we could put more time into this, knowing it's done. The green screen is a brilliant creation which allows any location, object etc which you are able to upload in the editing process, it also affects what the actor is meant to be doing. E.g. George was moving his hands in relation to where about's the objects where so it looks like he is trying to catch them, making it more realistic.
Adobe Premier Pro
This is a software which is where the editing of the music video takes place. Within this, there are different tools that allow you to ultimately put together the video. Here are a few of these tools:
- The bin on the left hand side was where all the cuts would go, whether rough or not. You can drag the selective shot onto the left screen before putting it within the timeline, as you can see whether it is what you want or not.
- The effects also on the left hand side where available for you to drag within the footage. All the different effects can signify something, e.g. Fading to white can represent a dream like image.
- The timeline allowed you to drag all the cuts from the left screen onto the timeline, in the appropriate place. Having all the shots together obviously allowed each cut to flow together making a video.
The Effects, these are found on the bottom left-hand side.
The bin, which is found in the top left-hand side of the screen.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a professional image editing software that is used by experts and anyone else who has downloaded the software. Here are a few of these tools:
- Palettes - To monitor and modify images.
- Tool Box - For creating and editing images.
- Drawing Palette - Where the image being worked on will appear.
We used Adobe Photoshop for our digipak and advert. People know it for being like Microsoft Office Word only having much more tools. The tools which I used within Adobe Photoshop were the 'T' button which allows you to type once you have licked the button. Another one which I found myself clicking on a lot were the arrow at the top of the tool box as this allowed me to move everything on the page into the place I would want. Obviously, once you placed more and more detail onto the page, you found yourself moving bits, even if it was minute.
Technologies that we used in the evaluation were extremely important as you did to refer make to the work and make a note at points that you thought were crucial to write about. Therefore, YouTube became something I used a lot as this allowed me to look at what conventions I wanted to use, develop or challenge and write why. Uploading them onto Blogger is a neat way of showing what I think/why I did it and then take a look for yourself. Facebook is a technology I took to my advantage as this provides feedback if people like it and so you can have an insight on what people think, if many people thought the same thing and generally, how I could have developed it. Also, there is a button called 'like' which obviously tells me whether people like it.
