Monday, 27 January 2014


Task 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?


The first form of media technology I used in the research and planning of our music video was Microsoft PowerPoint. I constructed a seven page slide of my first initial idea. We had to present our power point to the whole class and pitch our idea for general feedback so that we could improve and develop the idea further. My PowerPoint included lots of pictures that I found of costume and setting that I though was suitable and a link the song on YouTube so I could play the song to the class. I uploaded the slide on a website called slide share the coverts the slide into an embedded code that you can post up on you blog. By having pictures and the song in my presentation It enabled me to [present a much clearer image to the class so that every has the same image in their head rather than picturing different concepts.

I used my iPhone 5 to record the rehearsal of Oli dancing around a white board. I put music on in the background using the classroom speaker and I told Oli to act out the different stages. By using an iPhone it allow me to get a very decent quality picture and to upload it quickly to my blog using the blogger app I have downloaded. By filming the rehearsals it allowed us to view it as many times as  we want and to get a feel of how the actual scene would look like. After we filmed the rehearsal we discussed the footage in our group and decided that we need to increase his attitude and style in order to fit the whole rebellious character. So we told him to stare into the camera on the actual shoot day to interact with the audience a lot more and look menacing. We decided that we need a proper uniform for Oli to wear so we got an old school uniform from the theatre department. We wanted to add a quirky feature to this scene so we decided on the dunce hat and how it would increase size as the video progresses. I also used my iphone to record the focus group when we finally presented our idea to random members of the audience in which they give us feedback so that we could improve on our idea. After we filmed the focus group we were able to go back into the footage and discuss in our group what we needed to do to our products to improve on them.


In the construction of our Music Video we used a variety of media technologies. We used a Sony FS100 with prime lenses to shoot the majority of our music. We used a variety of different filming equipment such as the crane. The prime lenses allowed us to get a close up of oli's face with any facial distortion and to get a sharp and crisp picture. prime lenses are generally known for  being high quality and having the ability to produce clean, precise and crisp shots. as we had a lot of close ups shots of the lab equipment we used a prime lens for the close ups and for the wide angle distance shot of the lab we used a prime lens to achieve a good quality wide angle shot.









Final cut pro. I used a variety of different effects including movement blue and fisheye. I also played about with the speed levels of the clips and used a ramping effect in the video when the speed very quickly increases dramatically. I have the colour of most of the clips of the meth lab and lowered the brightness and increased the contrast to brings out the yellows a lot more. by doing this it gives off a more underground and urban look to it. The colourisation in our music video emphasises the bright colours which gave off a more druggy impression by boosting all the colours. I used a lot of transitions to create a smooth flow between the cuts and the effects to the clips. For example I used a cross fade to bring in a black and white and over contrasted effected that fades into one of the scenes.



I Used Photo shop to construct the Digi pack. I used photos that I took on the day with a cannon 5d and imported them into Photoshop. In which used a variety of different tools and effects to edit and re make the picture. I boosted up the contrast in all the photos and created a smooth skin texture by using a watermark effect. I created the title of the band using an online front generator in which I found a barcode font that appealed to me and I though suited the band image. I added a lot of shadow to the pictures by using the shadow tool because I wanted it to look like they were in an underground basement. I Used the eraser tool to take out the background and to the fade the background. I create the title of the song by cropping out the label of the vinyl disk and copying it to the front cover.






used a water colour effect to the album cover to create a sharper image and to smooth there skin so it like more professional. it also boosted the colours and gave a much more vibrant look to it.






I used hue and saturation to bring out the colours and to create a neon texture to the liquid in the flask. I boosted the reds and it turned the liquid ion the vase from red to pink. which goes well with the other colours on the back cover as they are pink as well.

For the website we researched into other artist website in the same genre as ours. For example we looked into the Gorilaz and The chemical broths website so we could see what would be appealing and suitable for our website. We created our website using Wix. Wix is an online program that allows you to create you very own webpage of any sort. Wix was very easy to use as no one in our group knew anything about creating a website. We used lots of bright colours on our website so that it would match our video and digi pack.


we did a lot of customising for the website. we used the opacity tool to brighten up the text so that it is clearly visible and readable in front of the image behind





 On our website we created  different pages that fans could look those taking them to different sections. For example we had a page where you could purchase tickets for live concerts and fan merchandise. We used a lot of hyperlinks that fans could click on taking them to social networks where we made accounts for our band. We created a twitter page for our band and posted up live dates of concerts to add to the realism.


I used Email to get in contact with the record label for their permission to use their song for our music video, Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches. We looked through various different website, telling us that they were sign to other labels so we look on iTunes and decided that they were the most reliable source. We found out that they were signed to XL Records so we emailed them.



I Used Prezi to gather all my research and collectively put it in a slide show. The research was to look into other artist of similar genre and to see what all the artists had in common. By using Prezi it helped us collect all our research and to present it in a visual form. This helped us see the similarities between the artist a lot more clearly. we made three different categories of slides and then place subsidiary slides within these categories. I used Prezi to incorporate videos from YouTube into the slide to give a much clearer meaning for example we were comparing music videos from different bands.







Tuesday, 3 December 2013


 
 
This is our front page of the website. we showed the site to our feedback audience. they thought that it suited the video and went with the overall theme. they really liked the layout and said it was easy to access everything. they thought that it might be a bit to busy on the front page of the site but we can change it.
 
 
 
 
This is a jumper that I made for the merchandise on the website. I used a picture from the shoot and blended it into the black top. I got a picture of jelly fish from the internet and blended it into the hand pocket of the jumper. 
 
The audience really liked the merchandise, they said it was well suited to the video and it had the same colour scheme.