Saturday, 19 December 2015

Draft Evaluation Question 4 // Sachin Mistry

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

I used a range of media technologies to help create my media products; this meant in the research and planning stages, production and also the evaluation stages. I used blogger in pre-production, production and post-production, this is because we used this medium to portray our ideas and reflect on others as well. In pre-production we used blogger for the research and planning so we would post the research we did on the blogs as a collated group blog. We labelled post so that they were easier to find and also help us to group our blog post together. So for example we all had to conduct an analysis on 3 music videos each so we create a label which we all used so that when clicked on it will take you to a filtered page with just our music video analysis on it.

We also used blogger during production as well. The way in which we used this was keeping the blog updated on the editing and filming process we went through as the filming was mainly done after school. Once we had the draft music video ready we uploaded it to Vimeo so that our peers and teacher could give us feedback on the video. We then published this to our blog so more people could see it and also making the feedback process easier as it has a build -in comment system which anyone can use. Likewise, we also used blogger to publish our draft and final versions of digipak and advert product, so that it could be see by other and also feedback would be welcome from our target audiences.

For post-production we used blogger for finishing off our coursework, this meant that when we had finished out media product we had some other task like our creative journey which is a mood board which shows the journey we took to get to our final media digipak and advert. We also published our draft and final version using different forms of media of our evaluation questions.

Pre-production: In the pre-production stage of my media product I used technologies such as Google Images, Tumblr and also a little of Google+. I used these technologies to help me explain my research by selecting images which suit my genre of my music for the video, digipak and advert. This is because I feel as if pictures also tell a story and it can also help to back up a point which I might be making about my target market.

For example I might have type something into the search engines and I could scroll through the pictures, this would help to come up with ideas for digipak and advert. I think that this is because when I found an idea which I liked I tried to create it which you can see in my creative journey which shows you how I got to this point. It inspires me to come up with similar ideas or use a combination of ideas in one style. When creating the storyboard for the music video and also planning for the photo shoot we looked at how other bands and also the types of people that would listen to our music would dress and style themselves. This is because styling and mise en scene also play a big part in trying to tell a story, as it becomes more realistic and desirable for the target audiences.
We used Adobe Premier Pro to create the animatic which would help bring our storyboard to life. This meant that we could see how to the scene we create would go along with the song which I thought was really helpful because if they were bits that we didn’t think go together then we could change in Adobe Premier Pro. We added the music over the top of the pictures of the song which we chose to make a music video for.

Production: During production we used two cameras and a camcorder. The first DSLR we used for filming was the Cannon EOS 100D We used this for the first half of the draft music video and then we rented the Panasonic HDC-SD90 for the second half of the music video. This was because it was smaller and had a better handle grip which we liked. It was more potable than the DSLR. But then when we edited the footage we saw that the low-light capabilities of the camcorder were not as good as the DSLR as the videos were grainy and as we were aiming to make a cinematic video it would look good if the shots where grainy. One of the members of the group bought a DSLR which was the Nikon D7200 Which better than the camcorder and the DSLR. So then all the camcorder shots were re-filmed with the Nikon and some of the Cannon shots were also re-filmed with this camera. The low-light capabilities of this camera where far superior to the camcorder which helped and made the video look much better than the original. I used the Cannon 100D to take the picture for the digipak and the advert.

Photo Shop was used to create out draft digipak and magazine covers. We did this by using the studio to take photos of the band members and then we could edit them in Photo Shop with affects, sizing, cropping and blurring etc. What I did was lay out the size of my page and then I made guidelines for the so that I could line up pictures and text properly on both my products. I measured a digipak as well so make sure that I got the measurements write, even though there are templates on line I found that they are all different sizes and when printer each of the panels are a couple millimetres short or longer than the other which I found odd so I made my own template.

Another form of media which we used was an instant messaging service called ‘WhatsApp’. This is because it helped us communicate with each other without going from one recipients thread to another to find out what they said and then inform the other person. We setup a group chat which lets each of us send text pictures and video which will then be received by everyone. I think that this as particularly useful because we were able to arrange when we can film as everyone could say when they are free to do so. There was a cancellation and this would also be easy to handle as they person who couldn’t make it can inform the group with a single message. We also used this instant messaging service to send each other pictures and video which would act as inspiration for the music, for example shots we might like in a video. Or pictures for our digipaks/adverts.

Post-production: We used Final Cut Pro X as our choice for editing and this played a large part in the product as well as the cameras. We used this because the UI (User Interface) was much better than adobe and also the screen which 21.5” widescreen instead of a square monitor which also made it easier as we could seem more elements of the software. I have never edited before until I started doing Media Studies as earlier on we had to make a Preliminary video which is where I learnt to edit, and within 20 minutes I knew what I was doing and could also help other because of how easy it was to use. with this software we were able to speed up clips and slow some of them down to help emphasise shots as well as make them more relevant to the time of the music as well. We could even change the white balance and colour of the entire clip if we wanted to. We also added text to the start of the video over the top of the fire scenes which we liked as it also helped us to emphasis the band and who they are.

An online program that we used was Vimeo. We used this to upload out video and then embed it onto our blog. This is because we were having trouble with the copyright claims of the song when uploading it to YouTube. With Final Cut Pro X, we would export the video and upload it straight from the editing software which was really helpful, and made the process evenly more seamless and effortless. By embedding it onto our blog our peers and others were able to see it and as it has a comment system we were able to receive feedback on it as well.

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