Shannon Evaluation Question 4

Charlotte's - Evaluation Question 4

Charlotte's - Evaluation Question 4 (Picture)

Here is an image I created using Photoshop and drawing with a Bamboo tablet. It illustrates all the technology myself and Shannon used to create our video and ancillary products. I will later do a voice over across the image on order to elaborate on the icons portrayed and form my third evaluation question.

Shannon - Evaluation Question 4 (Draft)

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

Final Cut Pro
- We used this to cut our clips to the right length and fit them with the lyrics in the song
(print screen of final cut pro software)
-The green bar along the bottom is the backing track which is our song and the clips above it are our footage. Final Cut Pro allowed us to freely move our clips to the part of the song we needed and from there, we were able to cut them down, re-time them or change the brightness.
- Some of our shots originally were too dark (print screen example of the window shot) however this software allowed us to match the colour to the lighter shots (print screen of the improved shot)
- It also allowed us to add a slow-motion effect to some of the instrumental shots and the end shot (tube chop example) which added more dramatic effect to the video.
- With the shots where the girl and boy are stood by the brick wall, we were able to add a stylised effect which faded the edges of the shot to make it seem more like a flash back. (show shot where this was used)
- On our final shot with the candles being blown out, Final Cut Pro allowed us to add a zoom which we hadn't originally included when filming. we wanted to zoom into the lit candle which represents hope in our video as without the zoom the end shot seemed bland and appeared to serve no purpose in sending a message.

Cameras
- FinePix S6500. We had to use this camera as a back-up due to the Canon HD camera we borrowed from school having a flat battery with a charger that did not fit the camera. Luckily I had a Finepix S6500 camera that we could use to film with however, despite the fact it is a very good camera, it is more for photography rather than filming therefore the quality is not up to the standard of the other footage we have from the Canon HD camera. For our draft video, we used a Sony camera which did not provide the high quality footage that we were able to get with the HD camera, however, the shots we filmed with this camera were the outdoor shots, all of which have been removed in the final version of our video.
(Show photos of cameras used)
We also used the FinePix S6500 camera to take the photos which we used in our digipaks and posters. We were able to use a black and white setting when taking some of the images; these ones turned out most promising therefore we edited them further later on.

Editing
- Photoshop. (show print screen of production of digipak/poster) I used photoshop to create my digipak and poster. This piece of software was useful for this task as it allowed me to work on layers; this was helpful as I could work on one layer at a time and move between layers if something needed altering.
-Picmonkey.com. We used this website for editing the photos for our digipaks, we had already used a black and white setting on the FinePix S6500 camera however the editing website allowed us to edit the images further and come out with more effective pictures that we were able to use.

Presenting / Evaluating
-Animoto. We used animoto to present our 25 word pitch at the start of this process. This allowed us to clearly present our ideas to the class in a simplistic format that looks effective.
- Slideshare, Scribd. We used these to upload our work from powerpoint and word onto our blogs
 as it is a quick and easy way to display our work online.
- Movie Maker. We used movie maker to create our animatic for our music video. It allowed us to use our drawings and put them all together to see what the final piece will look like. The program also allowed us to visualise how the shots will link together and we had too few/too many shots.
- Phones. We used our mobile phones to communicate and arrange when we could meet up and film. It is the easiest way for us to stay in contact with our main star.

- I will present this question by drawing up icons with the bamboo tablet and doing a voice over which explains when and why I used each peice of technology.

Chralotte's - Evaluation Question 4 (Draft)

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

For all elements of the development of our products, we used Blogger, to account what we were doing, monitor progress, detail any plans we had, and form a complete record of our work. A benefit of using Blogger was that both myself and partner Shannon were able to upload and share our work in one area. Whilst each of our posts is accredited to us personally, the overall Blog forms our work as a team, and was a perfect way to share ideas and represent us together. I've found that the use of our Blog has really aided our evaluation, as we have been able to refer to our previous work with ease, as everything is date ordered and arranged into our labelled categories. Keeping our work on a digital platform has also allowed us to connect all of our products from multiple mediums together. Including the presentation of our final video, website links, and embedded documents. Without our Blog we would have really struggled to organise our work in such a precise manner, the representation of our work would be far less varied and we wouldn't have been able to as easily monitor each other. Meaning tasks may have been repeated or missed out completely.

For the research and planning of our product we really relied on the use of the Internet, primarily Google, to establish current artists and analyse their work. We used YouTube to watch current music videos and establish conventions, and were able to capture clips of inspiration from current videos with TubeChop. We used programmes such as PowerPoint to form slide shows of our findings and uploaded these through websites like Scribd and Slideshare. 

Through the development and planning of our work we made an animoto to present the pitch of our initial idea. Once we had story boarded the planned shots for our video we scanned them in from home and arranged them with our music to form an Animatic using Movie Maker. We took photos, using still cameras, of possible costumes and settings for our video. 

Using our Android mobiles Shannon and I were always able to text each other to arrange meetings for filming and quickly share new ideas or queries. We also messaged each other on Facebook to quickly share photos and other links.

For the production of my Digipak and poster I used Photoshop, as it provided the detail of editing needed to help my products look more professional. Within Photoshop I was able to adjust the lighting, exposure and brightness of my images as well as airbrush minor imperfections. I also was able to cut and manipulate images to fit on my product. I downloaded the free trial of Photoshop at home  and accessed the PicMonkey website for increased editing time out of class. Unfortunately the free version of Photoshop I downloaded was an older version to that of school's so transferring between the two altered the appearance of my work slightly and limited my choice of fonts when at home. However I used Dafont.com to access a wider range of fonts, so I could be selective about the particular font that would represent our artist best. We used Shannon's FinePix S6500 still camera to take the photos for our ancillary products.

When it came to filming our music video we initially used a simple Sony camcorder from school, and tripod. Although this camera was simple to use the quality of images was poor. Fortunately we then had access to a Canon HD camcorder, that had almost identical workings to the previous camcorder, but provided us we the definition we required. For some of our still shots taken to document our filming sessions we used Shannon's professional FinePix camera. Unfortunately we also had to use this camera for the filming of our final video footage, due to a flat battery of our borrowed HD camera. Although this camera produces excellent stills, it is not intended for professional video, and so did not provide the HD we were after, producing blurry zooming. 

 To edit our video we used Final Cut Pro on an Apple Mac computer.Seeing as neither of us had much experience using this software it proved rather challenging, and was difficult to re-create our ideas, however with a little guidance we gained in ability. With this software we able to remove the audio from our clips an overlay the original Taylor Swift version of the song. We also re-timed some of our clips to put them into slow motion, adding emphasis to the shot. Such our final candle scene and during our instrumental where our actress throws the teddy bear. Some of our shots did appear a little darker than we had hoped and so we were able to match lighting across other scenes to improve appearance. For our flash back shots of our actors together, we used stylise effects to soften the camera edges and even add old age sepia tones to our work.

Poster Analysis