Question 4

For the thriller production we used editing software called IMovie which worked well to create a thriller. However, music promos are more technical in all areas of camerawork and editing while the themes are more technical.  IMovie doesn’t really have the specialist features to cater for music video which then affects the quality of the music video. To make sure we could make a professional looking music promo we then decided to use editing software called premiere pro, this being new editing software we needed to learn how to actually edit and all the different features which would help the music video. There were many new features that weren't on Imovie; this would help extend our creativity because there was more we place in our promo. One feature we came across was the cropping tool, when we experimented with the cropping tool we were intrigued by how we could utilise the tool in our promo.  Using premiere pro we were able to use a feature that allows multiple videos on at the same. This meant we were able to crop two videos on at the same time and play at the same time they’re both on the screen, which would create a split screen effect with both videos playing at the same time but in different places on the screen, this feature we found extremely useful and added another dimension to our promo. This also demonstrated our skill development and creativity. It also helped with the narrative of the promo because we were able to show the main artist traveling throughout the promo in different locations.  

Created with Padlet

Completing the ancillery tasks

We also had the task of producing two ancillary tasks which is a promotional poster and a CD Digi-pack.  To achieve this we used the editing software Photoshop. I’ve had some experience using Photoshop as I had to produce sections of a magazine for my production; this came extremely useful when producing our A2 ancillary tasks as we came up with the idea of presenting our poster and CD Digi-pack in a newspaper form which is similar to a magazine so I kind of had the knowhow on how to approach making the ancillaries. Although I had experience with Photoshop it had been quite a long time since I had used it so I had to re-learn and develop my skills with it again. One of the main things I had to relearn again was getting rid of block colours (mainly white) from images and typography, especially when it comes to creating newspaper style ancillaries I used a font website called DaFont.com to find a font that would work well in a newspaper style, once I typed in what text I wanted I had to screen shot it, save the screenshot of the text and take it into the Photoshop software, but then I was stuck with text with a white background on it when I wanted the background to be transparent with the black text, I tried using the magic wand tool to highlight the white background but I came up with an error that said ‘you cannot edit this item, it is not a smart object’ what did stump me for a little while but then I found the magic rubber tool, upon clicking on the white background a message came up saying ‘turn object into smart object?’ clicking yes will then allow us to highlight the white background and delete it making the background transparent, this allowing me to put it onto the poster or CD Digi-pack and it to fit In well with the newspaper style.

How did you use media technologies in the construction of research, planning and evaluation stages?

Our first task when producing a media promotion package was we needed to find a band that we could contact to allow us to use their song however the artist needed to be unsigned in order for us to evade running into any copyright infringement problems that could prove very problematic. After searching we came across a band called '3rd Rock Revolution' and decided to choose  their song 'Put On Ya' Boots'; a song we instantly liked and thought we could definitely use and instantly liked the song and we thought the song had potential of having a good music video. We also believed we could get a good narrative out of the lyrics and potential to use a good range of techniques. After finding them we contacted them via email and Facebook and asked them for permission to use their song.

In order for us to produce and complete the research, planning, evaluation and production we needed to use a more organised programme/technology to exhibit our work. The programme we found was blogger. The programme enables us to write any work on the actual blogger however, blogger enables us to bring in other technologies such as Prezie, Padlet and video technologies such as YouTube and Moovly by having an embed feature. The use of different technologies is extremely useful because as media students we want to demonstrate the understanding of different media technologies, this also provides us with different ways of presenting our work helping us fully embrace being a media student. Blogger gives us easy access to all of our work and keeps it organized through the use of tabs that allow us to sort the work into Preliminary, Research, Planning, Production and evaluation.

YouTube has been one of the most vital technologies we have used throughout our media work. Youtube was especially helpful during the early stages of our research helping us research the different music genres and the conventions they have in their music video.  This understanding of the typical conventions of a particular music genre was essential in the production of our preliminary and final tasks. The existing music videos that we researched gave us inspiration when producing our own work. We specifically looked at the conventions of a funk rock music video because the song we chose was of the funk rock genre. We took inspiration from music videos such as Cold Play ‘The scientist’ and The Verve ‘Bitter sweet symphony. We took inspiration from Cold Play ‘The Scientist’ for our main production; we took the idea of the main artist/singer on a journey throughout the music video and shown in several different environments as the narrative unfolds. We took inspiration from The Verve ‘bitter sweet symphony’ video in which it contains a similar style to Coldplay’s ‘scientist’. YouTube helped find inspiration for our production and helped us with our research by helping us find more about our chosen band ‘3^rd Rock Revolution’ , we were able to find a couple of their videos although the majority of the video s were from live performances it still helped us create a look for the band.

We used a variety of presentation technologies throughout the production of our final piece.  One of the technologies we used was an online programme called padlet which is useful presentation software because it gave us the ability to present our working in a well-organized way. The programme also demonstrated our ability to use different technologies. Padlet allowed us to incorporate pictures and videos easily and effectively especially when presenting the different conventions of the funk rock genre which is the genre of our chosen song. We used this technology mainly when producing our job roles document and when showing the different conventions of the funk rock genre, this because it gives us a simple way of showing information. We also used presentation software called Prezi, similarly to padlet it was a new way of presenting our work. It was extremely effective in showing clearly what we wanted to achieve from the genre we chose and how we would incorporate the typical conventions of the genre. We used Prezi primarily to present the research and planning work, we also used it to pitch the ideas we had for our music video.  

Furthermore blogger was also essential when presenting explained in depth work. Blogger can be useful with the embed feature which allows us to show videos and helps us link different technologies or example Prezi and Padlet.  Another technology was Scribd, this allowed us to upload full documents such as Microsoft PowerPoint instead of the essay from, this would help demonstrate our ability to use different technologies. Another technology we used was online search engines. We used ‘Google’ which proved essential in our efforts of our research and planning as we found all the technologies through Google. We were able to find different presentation software’s and any information, especially when researching our band and their biography, and any other information we could collect about them.

Throughout  the planning of our main production  we used  different technologies to find a band on the website Unsigned.com, after searching we found a band we liked called  ‘3^rd Rock Revolution’ and their song ‘Put On Ya Boots’  we contacted the band through email for their permission to use the song to make a promo. We tried finding more about the band such as their background and if they had any previous albums. We achieved this through multiple methods but Facebook and Unsigned.com were the two most effective methods although we tried to contact them to get more information however this was unsuccessful.  Unsigned.com provided us with a small biography about the band but it wasn’t enough so we tried their Facebook page where a link sent us to their person page in which we were able to gain all the information we needed to complete our research post, which we would use in our CD Digi-pack. We realised that using Facebook and YouTube would be a brilliant way to exhibit any of our production work such as our final music promo and the 2 promotional pieces the poster and CD Digi-pack. This because we needed some sort of audience feedback to see whether there is anything that we needed to change or anything they liked and wanted us to keep.  This feedback IS very important because it gives us an accurate picture of how our products are received.

Furthermore YouTube is an excellent source for finding out what existing professional music promo contain and is extremely good for finding out the conventions of camerawork, editing and mise-ene-scene throughout the music video , specific to each genre of music. YouTube is also good because it gave us the opportunity to watch and research a vast amount of music videos that contain narrative, disjuncture and performance. YouTube is also genre specific which helped us when trying to find the different conventions of each genre. We were able to find the conventions of the Funk Rock genre as well as other genres for ideas of camera shots, editing and mise en scene. We found two songs which are now our main influences. Coldplay’s ‘scientist’ and The verve ‘Bitter sweet symphony’. Both contain a similar theme in that the main actor is portrayed alone in urban and rural locations throughout their music videos and sing while walking through different locations. The narrative is evident throughout as he walks, this is something we decided to incorporate in our music video.  We wanted the main actor to sing while walking through different locations and make the narrative evident as music promo continues. Due to the Funk Rock genre we thought that it would not work if we kept going through the same location because it would get tedious while the Funk Rock genre is more upbeat and exciting. We decided to have the main singer changing location frequently at random times throughout the music promo with interesting transitions.  This shows the disjuncture we wanted to include in our music video. We took this idea form watching the ‘Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ ‘can’t stop’ music promo. The music promo itself is very disjunctive and contains random interesting transitions between scenes that we wanted and thought would be interesting in our music promo.

During the filming process the group have learnt new skills and developed on some of the skills we learnt from the thriller project. For example, the first shooting and editing skills we have developed was performing graphic matches to be used as a transition from one location to another and getting the right camera shots to make the whole section look correct and edit them together so they flow seamlessly.  One section in our rough cut and final production in particular was where the main actor is in an urban city environment, walking up to a railing and vault over the railing. The transitions of jumping over another railing but into a rural field; we needed to get a longshot/mid shot of the main actor walking towards the left side of the railing in the city, then a much closer shot of the main actor going to vault over the railing . Once this scene was done we went to the field location and filmed a close up shot of the main actor vaulting over the railing and then another shot of the main actor walking off. Once filmed we placed the sections of film together and edit them by taking away portions of the video so that the timing was made to look like the main actor was vaulting into a different location. The next shooting skill that we developed was how we utilised the tripod to make it more effective, When we produced a thriller the preliminary we tried to use the camera free hand however when we looked back at the footage we didn’t like the way it looked and made it look unprofessional. This is something we definitely wanted to change to make sure we got the final production to look as good and professional as we could.  We decided that we would use the tripod in literally all the shots unless it wasn’t necessary. Doing this vastly improved the quality of the production and reduced shake on our footage making our final product look more professional and up to a good standard.

Another skill we have developed is the use of a new camera. Looking at the footage from the thriller production and the music video preliminary there is a clear improvement in quality between the thriller footage and the music video footage.  We used a camcorder for the thriller footage whereas for the music video we decided to use a DSLR camera. This meant learning how to use the DSLR properly to try and get the best out it. We had to learn it how to film, how to take pictures in various modes and how to focus the actual camera, this proved very beneficial for our end product because the quality was better than that of the thriller production.  This made our product look more like an actual music video which we lacked from the thriller production. These new skills helped us out immensely when it came to producing our ancillary poster and CD Digi-pack.  We also borrowed the photoshoot equipment, this proved to work very well with the new skills we obtained when we were filming and taking photos. The equipment helped us create more professional looking pictures which could have been included in our Digi pack or CD cover. The photoshoot equipment included giving two industry lights, a black and white backdrop screen in which we also had to learn how set up the screen and the lights properly so that the lights, lit up the backdrop screen enough to make the subject look clearer in the picture.

For the thriller production we used editing software called IMovie which worked well to create a thriller. However, music promos are more technical in all areas of camerawork and editing while the themes are more technical.  IMovie doesn’t really have the specialist features to cater for music video which then affects the quality of the music video. To make sure we could make a professional looking music promo we then decided to use editing software called premiere pro, this being new editing software we needed to learn how to actually edit and all the different features which would help the music video. There were many new features that weren’t on Imovie; this would help extend our creativity because there was more we place in our promo. One feature we came across was the cropping tool, when we experimented with the cropping tool we were intrigued by how we could utilise the tool in our promo.  Using premiere pro we were able to use a feature that allows multiple videos on at the same. This meant we were able to crop two videos on at the same time and play at the same time they’re both on the screen, which would create a split screen effect with both videos playing at the same time but in different places on the screen, this feature we found extremely useful and added another dimension to our promo. This also demonstrated our skill development and creativity. It also helped with the narrative of the promo because we were able to show the main artist travelling throughout the promo in different locations. 

We also had the task of producing two ancillary tasks which is a promotional poster and a CD Digi-pack.  To achieve this we used the editing software Photoshop. I’ve had some experience using Photoshop as I had to produce sections of a magazine for my production; this came extremely useful when producing our A2 ancillary tasks as we came up with the idea of presenting our poster and CD Digi-pack in a newspaper form which is similar to a magazine so I kind of had the knowhow on how to approach making the ancillaries. Although I had experience with Photoshop it had been quite a long time since I had used it so I had to re-learn and develop my skills with it again. One of the main things I had to relearn again was getting rid of block colours (mainly white) from images and typography, especially when it comes to creating newspaper style ancillaries I used a font website called DaFont.com to find a font that would work well in a newspaper style, once I typed in what text I wanted I had to screen shot it, save the screenshot of the text and take it into the Photoshop software, but then I was stuck with text with a white background on it when I wanted the background to be transparent with the black text, I tried using the magic wand tool to highlight the white background but I came up with an error that said ‘you cannot edit this item, it is not a smart object’ what did stump me for a little while but then I found the magic rubber tool, upon clicking on the white background a message came up saying ‘turn object into smart object?’ clicking yes will then allow us to highlight the white background and delete it making the background transparent, this allowing me to put it onto the poster or CD Digi-pack and it to fit In well with the newspaper style.

When filming and editing there were times where we ran into difficulty.  Firstly when we started recording it was our first time using the DSLR which meant it took tome to figure out how to use the basic functions. There were many complicated functions especially when taking pictures. There were different modes when taking photos and when recording , figuring how to use these functions took time however proved useful when we used them in our work. Another problem we ran into was the camera is at times we forgot to use the auto focus function on the camera, which meant some of our first footage was not of a good quality which led to the re-filming of certain parts of the promo to make sure we got the right quality. Another filming problem we had to tackle was the tri-pod we used on the main shooting day when fully assembled did not work the way we wanted, for example in some parts we used the tripod it looked slanted which made making our footage quite shaky and wobbly at times.

There were some problems we faced when editing our production, for example learning the new editing software and all the different complex features. However after experimenting with the software and using Google tutorials we were able to rectify this problem.  Another problem that we came across in editing our production was when cutting and cropping footage. We wanted to have different videos playing at different times while on the screen at the same time however when we tried to cut the sound form the footage and use the actual song the actual song would get mixed up and changed.  To fix this we had to delete the song entirely from computer we were using and re upload the song every time we did this which proved time consuming. Furthermore, we ran into a problem with the premiere pro editing software, in which even though making sure we saved our production after every piece of editing, we kept losing files and editing footage, this disrupted our editing schedule but we did manage to fully edit our production.