Hi, my name is Ben and I am going to discuss the media technologies my group and I have used in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages of our final product. Technology was fundamental to the creation of our final piece.
Firstly, research and planning. We used lots of presentational technologies and websites such as: Powtoon, Emaze and Prezi. These sites allowed my group and I to present our ideas and drafts to our peers in an interesting and engaging way. They also allowed us to send the links to our peers and receive relevant and constructive criticism back, we would then apply this feedback and improve our work. We didn't exclusively use just one presentation software because each on had slightly different features and each one was suited to different tasks. For example Emaze was great for creating presentations that we would show to our peer groups. This is because some of the Emaze templates allowed us to create a visual route of the development of our ideas. *Include a screencast showing this* However Prezi was more suited to other tasks as it allowed us to create a digital midmap so we could easily add to it and brainstorm more ideas. Also Prezi gives you a lot more creative freedom to place text and images where you like, whereas Emaze restricts you to the borders of the template.
Also YouTube was an extremely useful tool throughout the research stage of our final piece. It allowed my group and I to collect an array of videos and pick out interesting parts that would influence our final video. I used all of the ideas we gained from other videos to create a Steal-o-matic, which can be seen here *point to side*. This allowed us to create a rough outline of how our video might look and we began practicing some scenes, such as lip syncing *video shown on screen* and also to create a storyboard of our ideas *display on screen*. We also used YouTube to research and create a an image for our artist, we took inspiration from artists such as $uicideBoy$ and EDEN. The videos we watched that they had created helped give us an idea on how our video should be performed as we had a similar genre and artist style to these people.
The best part about the presentation software we used is the fact that it is extremely simple. This meant that no matter what anyone in our group could work on improving our research and further develop the groups ideas whenever they wanted.
Another extremely useful website for my group and I was Google Drive, we all used a shared account to upload any videos and images we captured for our construction stage. Without this gem we probably would have lost lots of footage. It was also extremely useful for the fact that we could access our files, such as storyboards and previously filmed footage, from anywhere. It meant that we didn't need to always have access to a certain computer to see what needed to be filmed.
Last and certainly not least is the most important piece of technology, Blogger. Blogger was used extensively through all stages of our product. It allowed us to upload all of the work we had completed individually and as a group and it gave us an area to collect all of our research and planning. This made it a lot easier to go back to blogger and look at what we needed to film. It also allowed us to explain and demonstrate all of the techniques we used during the research, planning and construction stages. More importantly it gave us a an easy way to get feedback and provided us a great place to store it all, it meant when we were filming we could go back to our blogs and look at the feedback we had been given on previous tasks. This allowed us to get the best quality footage, and meant our footage was always improving due to the feedback we were receiving on our blogs from our teachers and peers.
Construction, possibly the most tech heavy stage of them all. So many different techniques and software were used in the construction stage of our project.
First of all, Adobe Photoshop. I used Photoshop extensively throughout the construction stage, I had previous experience with Photoshop and so my group decided that I was the best for anything that needed to use Photoshop. The first thing I created was the Digi Pak. We knew that we wanted to use our Digi pak in the final piece so we wanted it to be finished earlier than the deadline. I used lots of techniques in Photoshop, including colour correction and removing certain parts of colour, which can be seen on screen. *Display before and after, split in half*. This was to ensure that our digi pak had cross media synergy with our website and our final piece. Take a look at all of that cross media synergy.
The next product from Photoshop was the Magazine Cover. Here Aaron had his chance to become a model, he stood in front of this green screen *point behind* where we took a picture of his front profile. We looked at a Clash magazine to copy and we found this *Displayed on screen*. We uploaded the best image of Aaron into Photoshop and started working on it. I discovered a really easy way to recreate the Clash magazine by layering it over our image of Aaron and then turning up the opacity *screencast displayed on screen*. This allowed me to line up all of Aaron's facial features to the artist on the front cover of the Clash magazine and also line up all of the text. I did some more colour correction and final touch ups, like creating realistic shadows and removing any annoying blemishes.
The next product created on photoshop was the polaroid images that we used in our video, these were possibly the most exciting things I've created on photoshop as it was so quick and simple but looked extremely professional. I used a tutorial online to look at the tools and effects I would need to use and I started to create the polaroid. I had to use lots of colour correction and tools such as 'Gaussian blur' to create a retro polaroid effect on each image. These polaroid images were extremely useful as they allowed us to create some artistic transition in our video.
The next tool that I became even more familiar with this year was Adobe Premiere. And this was all thanks to both my prelim task and the banana phone task. My prelim task, which required a lot of effects from Adobe AfterEffects, helped me to realise that I could not use AfterEffects for my final piece as the effects I wanted to create wold take too long. From our banana phone task we all learnt some editing techniques that we used in our final piece such as the leave colour effect. Adobe Premier was crucial to the creation of our final piece as we used a lot of effects on premiere to create the masterpiece 'Something more'. My favourite effect was the Leave Colour effect that was used extensively throughout our video. It allowed me to remove certain colours and turn them into black and white, which created the clever artistic effect seen all over our video, digipak and website. Even more cross media synergy!
None of this construction stage could've been created without the use of hardware. Firstly the camera, we all knew that we wanted our video to be the best quality it could be, so we decided to use Aaron's Nikon D3300. We also used a range of lenses to capture the different angles and framing of the shots we wanted. The two lenses we used 15mm to 55mm and also a 70mm to 300mm lense. Another key piece of hardware was the tripod, we came up with an innovative idea to use a one legged tripod as a handheld tripod which allowed us to get a steady shot throughout our filming and also allowed us to create the swooping shots seen in one of our polaroid transition scenes.
And lastly, the evaluation stage, we used an extensive amount of technologies for our evaluation stage. Because we wanted to present our evaluations in an interesting and innovative way, therefore we decided to use GIF's to present evidence for our evaluations. To create the GIFs we used a website called Giphy, which allowed us to show evidence of our work in a more interesting manner rather than just showing still images. The majority of the software we used in our evaluation stages was already used during our research and planning stages, such as blogger and emaze.
The final piece of technology that we used in our evaluation stage, and was used extensively in this video, would be screencast. Screencast allowed us to record everything on our computer screens. It allowed us to present evidence of what we created and how we did it extremely easily. For example we used it in this video when we were showing how we created the magazine. It provided us another innovative way to present our evidence.
I feel my group and I have learnt a lot from the creation of our final product. We ran into many barriers and issues but we found ways to work around them. The first thing we all learnt was one of the most important techniques in our video; the Leave Colour effect. I initially found the effect and taught the rest on my group how to use it. At some points I had to use multiple layers as the leave colour effect only allows you to keep one colour at a time. Therefore I learnt a new technique to layer the same section of the video multiple times on top of each other and cropping out the background, which you can see in this screencast. The next thing my group and I have learnt is how to green screen, which we learnt when creating this video. We looked at the tools we needed to use in Premier and how to replace the green background with what we wanted. This allowed us to display the evidence of how we use technologies in all stages of our production.
Aaron and Harrison began creating the website on Wix as this was the most recommended site to create a website on. Aaron and Harrison carried out research on how to create a professional website and what tools can be used to create an advanced website. Harrison found out how to show a live version of our artists Instagram page on the home page of the website. Harrison also created the contact page and set up the email and links to make sure that the contact page actually does work and can be used. The font Besom was also downloaded into wix as that is the font that has been used throughout the other products, which means more Cross Media Synergy!
Before any images were added Aaron edited each image, including the background images on each page. Aaron edited the images on PhotoShop. Aaron used many tools, such as colour gradient and contrast and brightness on photoshop to correct the lighting and ensure all images suited the dark, indie nature of our artist iuris. each image that was added to the site had been taken at a location that were in the music video to integrate more cross media synergy into all of final products. Harrison and Aaron also researched and learnt how to create a working e-commerce shop for our artists website, they learnt how to use certain Wix plugins that allowed them to create custom merchandise and a working internet shop. The techniques they learnt whilst using Wix really helped our artists website to look as professional as possible.
During the research stage, harrison and myself researched a huge amount of transition styles. We documented everything we found on Blogger and ensured that we looked at each post when we went to film the transitions. One of my favourite transitions that harrison and myself have learnt during the production of our final product was the Whip Pan transition used near the beginning of our video. We watched a YouTube video *display on screen* and adapted the technique to suit our video. We then wrote about how we decided to use the whip pan and how we had adapted it to suit our needs.
Another thing the entire group learnt was how to use manual settings on the Nikon D3300 we used to film our music video. At first we were using manual settings but when we went to edit the clips we found that the lighting wasn't quite right and the focus wasn't how we wanted it, so we switched to manual settings. We learnt how to bring a shot out of focus to then be in focus, which can be seen in this clip *Show clip of Aaron walking to camera out of focus*.
We also decided to try and use Adobe AfterEffects for one of the clips in our video, however we decided that the clip didn't really suit our video and didn't make much sense, so we didn't use it. We wanted to have a shot where Aaron was sitting down in front of the camera, with his back facing the camera, and then have him walk past the camera. We used an effect on Adobe AfterEffects called 'Keying' to outline Aaron and remove all of the background, we did on one of the clips and then layered both on top of each other.
Aaron and Harrison began creating the website on Wix as this was the most recommended site to create a website on. Aaron and Harrison carried out research on how to create a professional website and what tools can be used to create an advanced website. Harrison found out how to show a live version of our artists Instagram page on the home page of the website. Harrison also created the contact page and set up the email and links to make sure that the contact page actually does work and can be used. The font Besom was also downloaded into wix as that is the font that has been used throughout the other products, which means more Cross Media Synergy!
Before any images were added Aaron edited each image, including the background images on each page. Aaron edited the images on PhotoShop. Aaron used many tools, such as colour gradient and contrast and brightness on photoshop to correct the lighting and ensure all images suited the dark, indie nature of our artist iuris. each image that was added to the site had been taken at a location that were in the music video to integrate more cross media synergy into all of final products. Harrison and Aaron also researched and learnt how to create a working e-commerce shop for our artists website, they learnt how to use certain Wix plugins that allowed them to create custom merchandise and a working internet shop. The techniques they learnt whilst using Wix really helped our artists website to look as professional as possible.
During the research stage, harrison and myself researched a huge amount of transition styles. We documented everything we found on Blogger and ensured that we looked at each post when we went to film the transitions. One of my favourite transitions that harrison and myself have learnt during the production of our final product was the Whip Pan transition used near the beginning of our video. We watched a YouTube video *display on screen* and adapted the technique to suit our video. We then wrote about how we decided to use the whip pan and how we had adapted it to suit our needs.
Another thing the entire group learnt was how to use manual settings on the Nikon D3300 we used to film our music video. At first we were using manual settings but when we went to edit the clips we found that the lighting wasn't quite right and the focus wasn't how we wanted it, so we switched to manual settings. We learnt how to bring a shot out of focus to then be in focus, which can be seen in this clip *Show clip of Aaron walking to camera out of focus*.
We also decided to try and use Adobe AfterEffects for one of the clips in our video, however we decided that the clip didn't really suit our video and didn't make much sense, so we didn't use it. We wanted to have a shot where Aaron was sitting down in front of the camera, with his back facing the camera, and then have him walk past the camera. We used an effect on Adobe AfterEffects called 'Keying' to outline Aaron and remove all of the background, we did on one of the clips and then layered both on top of each other.
We have learnt a lot about hardware and software over the course of this project, and have all progressed as media student as a result of this.
Excellent evaluation - please post with the right question.
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