A2 Media - Question Four
- 1. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? Question Four Alex Hughes
- 2. “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.” –Thomas Edison Thomas Edison, one of the greatest American inventors of all time. The person who invented the light bulb and the motion picture camera; getting film and photography to where they are today. He stated that “if something doesn’t do what you planned it to do, doesn’t mean it’s useless.” Even one of the greatest inventors of all time said that there can be flaws in almost everything you use, so if one item had a potential limitation, there was always a way around it. There was a way to fix the problem and solve the issue and this is exactly what we did with the use of technology throughout our coursework. If there was one problem we encountered, we would find and work our way around it to ensure we could continue.
- 3. RESEARCH YouTube was the best site to use when researching upon music videos as the website holds all sorts of music videos e.g. old videos, fan videos, new videos etc. I could watch numerous music videos for as long as I needed, as well as this, I could also research upon ‘vlogs’ (video blogs) which reviewed albums, songs and general media products themselves. I would personally say YouTube was a success for my coursework as it allowed me to find the 3 best music videos to analyse for my product research as well as view opinions on them from different people. It also allowed me to compare videos against each other which was helpful in finding out the conventions of genres e.g. I could watch an old rock video to compare to a more modern one and spot the similarities which are the conventions. There are a variety of different media sites that allow users to watch music videos such as Vevo, Vimeo and DailyMotion but I personally thought YouTube was much easier to use. The site allows you to control the video by pausing, playing, fast-forwarding, subtitles, changing the speed and quality and also having the feature to make the video bigger or full screen. In general, it’s much easier for everyone.
- 4. Google was also another popular search Engine that allowed me to find sites or images for my product research. For example, I had to research on different digipaks for different genres and talk about their conventions using the ‘Repertoire of Elements’. I used Google's Images in particular to search for digipaks that shown the front and back cover, CD design and inside pages. It was very difficult to find an image with all these features but with Google, the biggest search page on the internet, I managed to find a variety of different digipaks. Overall, Google was a success for helping me in product research. Facebook and Twitter (and overall social media) was another big way to research upon music videos, magazine adverts and digipaks for my product research. These sort of sites allow users to freely express their feelings and opinions about anything they want to discuss. Therefore, I took it upon myself to search these sites for what people thought on certain music videos and get influence from them to put into my own video. Overall, I think Social Media is the biggest success for the coursework as it allows me to send the surveys out to people across the world. RESEARCH Instagram Tumblr
- 5. RESEARCH However, for the magazine advert analysis’ within the product research, I found it hard to use Google Images as well as Google in general to find modern and up-to-date adverts of artists to this day. When searching for the adverts, a very high number of results came up but unfortunately were very old adverts of magazines. I wanted recent adverts from popular magazines e.g. Kerrang!, NME and Q. As the use of technology and the internet had let me down, I had to come up with an alternative that allowed me to find what I needed. The only way I could possibly find these recent music adverts in popular magazines, was by visiting the local supermarket and purchasing the magazines myself, however luckily, the college has a subscription to the magazines I wanted and I was able to find the adverts I needed free of charge.
- 6. RECORD For the filming and recording process, we used a variety of different technologies to film, but used mainly one of them. We used the Canon 1100D to film the majority of the video because of the high quality and for the adjustable settings which made it much easier to use. I would say the camera was successful in getting the majority of the video filmed in high quality resolution. However, there was a limitation with the Canon as some clips need slow motion. Therefore, we used a feature on the iPhone 5s which could film slow motion in 120fps as the Canon could only shoot 30fps. This enabled us to slow the video down to a suitable speed without the clips becoming jumpy.
- 7. RECORD The second camera we used, alongside the iPhone and Canon, was the Nikon DSLR. The Nikon was used as a second camera with the Canon so that if the Canon accidentally missed something we needed, there was a chance the Nikon caught it instead. This was a success as it was used several times as well as the fact the continuity was continued through the video, rather than reshooting on other days and there being a chance the characters wore different clothing. As this was a success, there were also limitations with the Nikon as the camera quality wasn’t as strong as the Canon 1100D which failed some of the shots. We usually had the Nikon secured firmly to a tripod that would film everything as a long shot, again filming what the Canon may miss as that was the ‘up close’ and handheld camera used for the majority of the video.
- 8. EDITING To edit the video together, we used one software to cut, add basic effects and transitions and merge clips together. Adobe Premiere Pro allowed us to import all the best clips, rename them and sort them into folders so we knew which clips went where. It also allowed us to add basic effects such as Black and White and transitions such as Dip to Black. It was much more successful than using other software such as iMovie or Final Cut Pro as they were either too basic or too advanced. Alongside Premiere, we also used Adobe After Effects which allowed us to add more advanced effects onto the clips such as warp stabiliser, lighting effects and ghosting/echo. Using this software created a much more professional feel to the video which made it look a lot better.
- 9. EDITING As well as the editing the videos, we also had to edit the sound at the start where the song cuts/fades, the diegetic dialogue is spoken and the song then starts again. At first, we used Audacity, which is basic software to edit sound for the dialogue but found that we couldn’t reduce the background or ambience noise because it was too advanced for Audacity. We managed to find an alternative named Adobe Audition, which luckily allowed us to remove more ambient noise. Even though this was successful in reducing a small amount of the noise, we couldn’t remove it completely. I think if we were to redo this bit, it would probably be much easier to use a microphone attached to the camera.
- 10. EDITING When actually editing the video and using Premiere, we encountered a few problems when trying to edit at home. The first problem we encountered was the fact that at college, we had Windows computers to edit on that had version CS5 of Premiere whereas at home on my Apple Mac, I had CS6. This wouldn’t allow me to use the same file we edited on at college, at home. Therefore, we had to export whatever edited file we had at college to a full length video, which did contain gaps that needed filling over the weekend and then editing in. After we exported the file, we had to import it into the newer version of Premiere onto my Mac and cut out all the gaps in the video so we knew what to fill. This was a very long process as it took roughly 10 minutes to export the file from Premiere and roughly 5 minutes to import the file into Premiere on my Mac. Another problem we encountered was was the actual placing of the files/footage. I imported all the necessary files for the video onto the New Volume drive in college, forgetting that I may need these files later on at home when editing there. I realised I had to copy ALL the files onto my 320GB hard drive which again, took a very long time.
- 11. For distributing the video, the Internet was the best way to ‘get the word out’. There were two main sites that allowed me to share the video and gain views. As previously mentioned, YouTube was the best option as it has high and frequent viewers daily which makes it the most popular sites for video uploads and views. The site was successful as it allowed me to share the video via links to post onto other sites, mainly social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr are the most popular and most used social media sites to this date, which made me realise it was best to share the video via link onto these sites. It was successful as I could spread the word about the video and gain more views, as well as this, I could also directly message the artists or users with the link to ensure they watch it. DISTRIBUTION Instagram Tumblr
- 12. CONCLUSION Overall, I personally think that the technology we used in researching, planning, producing and distributing the video has all been successful in getting the video to where it is now. I’m extremely pleased with the video and how it looks and believe that if we were to improve on it, there would only be very minor adjustments. In terms of technology, the only possible way we could’ve improved on this was by maybe using a professional camera and microphone (for recording diegetic sound) so that the video had the highest quality possible. The video was a very enjoyable experience and I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.