Sunday, 29 January 2012

GOODBYE

WELL, THIS IS IT...

This is my final signing off blogger. I know how sad! I just couldn't leave without saying goodbye.What a rewarding (yet stressful and tiring mind you!) journey this has been and I'd like to thank Prince, Kehinde, Mehdi and our teachers Rebecca and Dan for helping me through this and helping me achieve the best possible grade I could get.My book is not finished yet, but I will have to close this chapter :)

Stephanie

Saturday, 28 January 2012

Bye blogger!

Im finally finished on my coursework for blogger ands it has been an amazing journey to post the work that i have been doing for the past few months. It has been great working with the group this year making a amazing music video and a new friendship. I hope you like the work that i have been posting here and i would like to thank all the teachers my group members and  all the people that made comments on certain parts of our work for example, the music video. There is still a lot to do as A2 media is not done but for now this part of the course is now finished so i would like to say bye and hope everyone likes our blogs.
Thank you  and Bye once again.

Good Bye

Friday, 27 January 2012

C'EST FINIE!!!

It seems fitting to sign out from blogger and not just disappear without saying good bye, good luck and thanks seeing the practical section of my coursework has come to an end. It's been quite an interesting journey. I have learnt lot of skills in terms of technology, work ethics as well as been part of a team. Thanks once again to my teachers Rebecca and Dan for the relentless support. You guys are the best. Good Luck to everyone even as we continue to the remaining part of our A2 course.

This is Kehinde signing out. CIAO!!!


Evaluation Question 4

What Have Your Learnt From Audience Feedback?

On December 6th I went to the cinema to watch my music video. They day is vital as it was the first time we all got to watch our music video, it was also a great way for me to see the audience reactions and get some feedback from them. I made sure I had my camera with me on the day to document this experience and I also caught up with some people who watched my video and they gave me some feedback. I took notes on some of the feedback I got from people and me and my group also filmed some people talking about our work.





Shani's Feedback: The Music Video was beautiful and Lovely I love how it is also linked to the digipak. The best thing I like about the video was all the shot's of the artist lip-syncing loves how there was such a variety and loved her make up, costume and the mis en scene. I loved it so much I showed my mum.


Shani has seen both my music video and ancillary work. She stated she liked how all my work is linked together and how it's good as she as an audience knows what they are all about. She stated that my Advertisement gave her all the information she needed and that we kept the video really professionally and it was enjoyable to watch. Lastly she stated that she watches my music video when she has time to spare and she has shared the video with her family and friends.



Carolines Feedback: "OMG prince your video is so nice, I love the special effect's and the girl's lip-syncing was excellent. It really felt as if the song belonged to the girl.  I love how things went backwards really made if more interesting then just normal dancing."



Levett's Feedback; "The actual artist was always present so we knew who was singing the song. I went with the genre, I really liked it Top Job, 10 out of 10, 100% for effort."
Here is the video of Levett's feedback. Links at the bottom will lead to two more feedback video's.



What I have learnt from all my feedback is that everyone really enjoyed our video more then we even expected. It was great to see that all our effort was not put to wait. After spending a lot of time editing and adding effects into our video it was nice to know everyone really highlighted that. Everyone talked about the artist on how good her performance was and how good she looked which was great as the video is supposed to some what of a promotional marketing scheme for her as a new artist so for everyone to recognise her and get people talking about was a great. Nobody really gave us any negative feedback which was great for us but I personal think that if we could do it again some things would have been done differently. Like some part's of the video the lighting was kinda low but we made sure we did not put that scene multiple of times and the scene only lasted a couple of seconds. I think we could have used the camera in different way's like we could have TRACKED the artist as she walked or lip-synced, I did however tracked around her near the end of the video just to show some versatility in our camera work. 






People also said that the video used conventional editing and effects that is used in our dub-step genre that we followed. Our teacher's also said that we could have adding in some extreme close up's of the dancer's as they danced, If we did do it again I would have cuted in some closer shot's of the dancers as they done their choreography. We was also told that he dancers and singer should have had a scene together it would have made our video more effective then it already was. My ancillary work got a lot of positive feedback to if anything I could have added some more designed at the back of the digipak and I could have done more with the cd holding panel. I was also insured that everything linked and that everyone was impressed. I really took in all these feedback in as I think they are really important as an artist or manager or anybody working in music. They really help you to know what errors not to do next time you create a product or ancillary text and it is always good to hear feedback from your target audience.

Thursday, 26 January 2012

Question 4 Evaluation


Question 4 Evaluation

Evaluation Question 3

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

Evaluation Question 2

2. How Effective is the combination of your main product (video) and ancillary texts (digipak and Advertisement)










I belive my ancillary text was sucessful as I followed the conventions of  the Genre it is using. The most important thing about it is that i created an Identity for my artist given her a signature look and focusing on the angles that her audience have seen before. I think her target audience would be attracted to it as i used big dark purple font's that stand out and used an image that can be referenced back to the music video. My target audience would be between the age of 16 up to 25 and I think that my digipak and products appeal to them as I used new aged editing effects in my video and my ancillary text stand out and grabs their anttention and sells m artist. 










Sunday, 22 January 2012

EVALUATION Q4: What have you learnt from your audience feedback?


 




QUESTION FOUR.
Overall, the reception from our music video is positive from people of all ages. When we were editing our videos on Final Cut Pro in the mac suite, a lot of people came to our desk to watch our video and give feedback, even when it wasn't completed yet! Here is an accumulation of all the different people that gave us feedback in class:

TONY'S FEEDBACK


As you can see Tony's thoughts on our work were mostly positive, but we definitely took his constructive criticism into consideration. Tony did notice that there was a part in our video where the dancers lighting wasn't up to par and it just looked really unprofessional with the rest of the video (in my opinion) along with the fact that  the 41 bus was showing which is something you would never find in a music video. We corrected that straight away so ensure our video was the best it could be. I have learned that it is important to always wath your surroundings whilst filming and to also ensure that lighting is okay, because without lighting you wouldn't be able to see what is on the screen! Tony was also worried about safety precautions, but we reassured him that it was completely safe and that there was nothing to worry about. I appreciate and agree with the constructic criticism that Tony had given us, honesty is the best policy. Here is another viewpoint from our peers at college:

PEER FEEDBACK



The feedback from my peers was overall positive. I think that they were more reluctant or afraid to give contructive criticism like the teachers are because obviously us as teens aren't as straight forward and upfront as teachers are when it comes to criticize each others work. However, I do appreciate what they did notice, such as the artists costume and make up which we took special care to ensure that the mise en scene was pleasing for the audience. Lashmi (one of my peers) also noticed the behind-the-scenes work we did with the water falling on the rock and us reversing it, so we were quite appreciative at that.



When we were satisfied with our video and made all the changes suggested we decided to put our video on vimeo, which is a website designed so users can upload various videos they have created. Here is a link to our video on Vimeo, http://vimeo.com/32961275. Here is also some screen shots of audience feedback that I got from college peers about my video:




From this screen shot it's easy to see that the feedback from our peers is mainly positive. However, taking into consideration that two people have commented on the dancing and the fact that the artist could have been within the performance, it is definitely something that we could have improve don. When we first came up with the dance idea, we had no idea that we would have to take so many shots and cut in so many times. Our shots were mostly LS and MS but in all honesty we should have taken CU's and ECU's of the dancers faces to add interest to the music video and make it more dynamic and live. We did try to shoot as many clips as we could and I do thing we did a pretty good job considering the limited amount of time we had due to complications with the camera and such, but obviously there is always room for improvement. As regards to the artist dancing in the performance, we felt that it was better for her image and our genre of dubstep that she shouldn't dance in the video as it would give off a hip hop or pop vibe which is not what we had planned. Nevertheless, looking back in retrospect it would have added a nice touch to the music video.

THE CINEMA TRIP


Your image is loading...Oh yes! Our lovely teachers gave us a chance to view our amazing videos in the cinema! It was hosted at Screen On The Green which is in Islington. It is a lovely venue with plush pillows, it was truly a lovely experience. I also thought this was a great opportunity to gt some valuable audience feedback for my evaluation (thinking ahead!!). I have made a very short documentary on our trip to the cinema on Windows Live Movie Maker below, enjoy :) 


Until then!

Stephanie :)

EVALUATION Q3: How did you use media technologies in the constructions and research, planning and evaluation stages?


QUESTION THREE.


During the making of my media products including my music video and my ancillary texts. I used a variety of media technology to help me with constructing, researching, planning and evaluating my coursework.

Video camera.
For the music video, we got the opportunity to use a brand new state of the art video camera. Without this high quality video camera, the music video wouldn't have been possible.


When I first got around the use the camera, I didn't really know how to use it. However, through experimentation I finally learnt how to use it. First of all, I made sure I had a properly charged camera battery including spares so we never ran out of power during filiming. The battery compartment was in the back of the camera and it could only fit in one way.



Blackberry 9900 - a convergent device.

When we were filming we had to take a lot of shots, so we definitely had to know how to use the record and playback function. When we were finished with filming a shot. We always played scenes back to make sure the camera was set on the tripod straight and that the lighting was of a good standard. We put the camera in 'automode' so it took care of all the technicalities like the black and white balance in our shots. We didn't worry about sound, as we planned to put our song over and sync it to the video anyway. During filming, we also used my mobile phone to play the song so I knew when to lipsync. I downloaded our chosen song from Itunes and transferred it to my phone via USB. This was a quick and efficient way of me downloading a high quality copies of the song and being able to listen to it on the device.

Blogger helped me a lot, especially during the planning stages. Without blogger, I wouldn't have been able to record my journey and reflect back on it. It was almost like a personal diary. In AS i did know how to use blogger but I think A2 i have expanded my skills and now I know how to configure things such as HTML, etc. Below is a video of my animatic, and I will explain below how I have created it

Digital camera - convergent device



We made animatics by taking pictures of little doll figures representing the artist and the dancers in front of a backdrop which are pictures of the Barbican centre. We put an image of our planned location on Google Maps and simply held the dolls in front of it to represent the performance and characters. We used a standard digital camera to take the pictures by clicking the button on the top to take the pictures. We tried to get the best lighting as possible so we made sure it was set to automatic and flash to get clear pictures. To upload the pictures onto the Macs we had to get an SD card reader and insert the memory card into it to read the images we took. Once that was done, we uploaded the pictures onto Final Cut Pro and simple put the pictures in the order that we wanted it to go and also so it could be on time with the song. In order to place our song onto Final Cut pro, we had to convert Youtube clips using a program called Clipgrap on the mac which converts Youtube clips into MP4 films and import it into Final Cut Pro. I also placed pics on the timeline and make sure its to the beat, which proved difficult as our song has many different beats.

 Below, I have made a screen-cast using screencast-o-matic explaining how I used Blogger in terms of mostly planning and research but also exploring evaluation. Enjoy :) P.S, it is quite a long video, so please bare with me :) Turn your volume up!!



Now, obviously blogger wasn't all what I used. Here is another screen cast of me explaining everything else such as how I used the internet to help me with my planning, research and evaluation :






Sorry the video cut off, but this video basically explained how I used media technologies and all the programs I used in terms of planning, research evaluation, etc.

Until then!

Stephanie



Thursday, 19 January 2012

A2 Media Studies- Guidence for writing your Evaluation, Question 3 (Finish off)

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

I used media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages as it is really crucial to have to achieve success in these particular fields. I used many aspects of media technology in my project, and i shall explain those aspects below in detail.

First of all brand new state of the art video cameras were used while also using memory cards as they were crucial as one of the obvious reasons would be to make a music video you need a camera and without one there is really no point of using it. Ive been told the tripod is not a piece of digital technology and rightly so, although i will just mention that it was part of holding the camera still in certain shots. Secondly the fact that music videos nowadays are recorded in HD we did not want to feel left out so we just had to have one of the JVC state of the art video camera's to record in high definition to keep up with the world of technology and media.
Memory cards were used for obvious reasons is to keep our footage and shots of our music video so that we will not lose them even if they are shots we do not want to use in our actual music video. Now for the camera to work we had to have 2 batteries : one for actually being able to use the video camera, and two for having a spare one for backup if the first one starts to die out.
Most of the camera work was done manually as we did not use focus- assist. We were recording with the
5 second rule and this was very important for adding edits later on in the diting process. First of all this is because we had to have the whole shot so we can cut the shots we do not need. Also if there are anything we could add we were able to have the whole shot to see.

Blogger was one of the main aspects of media technology in my project in conducting valuable Research, Planning and evaluation. As you can see i am using it write now as it is useful to post videos, images and screen shots etc... also a way to store all the work i have done as a diary.

First of all we have to sing in to the site which looks like this.

In which you then go view profile and search for your group in this case its group 22 as this is my group.


So once you are in the groups page should be up and here is where i used to plan and store my planning research and evaluation as i posted a pitch, evaluation as i am doing now and also research from the internet which i will go and explain later on. Also the fact that my digipaks are all up as well.


Right so now i will show you how i used blogger to post images, videos and screenshots.
Firstly you go to new post on the top right corner of the page and it should look like this.


To upload pictures you can do this in three ways to upload.
1.Directly from this blog by uploading pictures that are already stored into blogger.
2.From Picasa Web Albums as you can upload pictures from Picasa.
3. From a URL in which you simply paste an image's URL from the internet

but to get this you must firstly click on the icon that shows a picture of something in the middle of the 'LINK' and 'VIDEO CLIP' icon.



Then the three options of upload should appear that i mentioned before.



Once this step is done you simply choose the file you want to add.  There should be files there, the pic does not show any as this is just an example.

You then add the selected image of your choice and then it should appear on your post.



To upload the video it is nearly the same however instead of having the option to upload from an URL or Picasa its just upload from youtube or my youtube videos in which some people may have saved their faviorite vid's. However it is the same process in uploading from an file like i showed with the images.


How did i actually use the blog to do the research?

I used blogger for research purposes in many ways first is being that it links with Vimeo as in you can see different posts posted to get an idea of certain aspects of media. Secondly, the teachers blogs which were used as guidelines to help the student on certain parts of our work.
Also i used it to map the journey of my work from planning through to the completing of the editing. It was a place for me to keep all my research together and to look back on to help me with what i came to edit.


However uploading Vimeo clips is completely different to uploading any other video clip. Here are the steps to achieve this.

1.Firstly you need to go on to vimeo.



Click on 'EMBED' from a vimeo vlip. and this is what should appear up.


Now you literally get the embedded code by doing one click on it which should highlight the code automatically in which you then copy.


Once that is done you then return back to your post and go on the Edit HTML tab.
Then paste the code you have copied.

Then you should have the video all you have to do now is literally post the blog.


As i mentioned before i will explain how the internet helped me for research purposes. First of all most of my information i got on dub-step and nero is from the internet. One example would be Youtube as i researched on other music videos of dubstep genre and in general to get some ideas. For example of this clip of Pixie lott's music video- All about tonight. I will show you only specific part i got the idea from as the visuals of the background merged with the artists face to show them as one.


I was exposed to wide range of videos that did not appeal to me and my music genre. For example, i was looking at some hip- hop/grime videos while also looking at some mainstream pop videos. There were many things in these types of music videos that literally did not fit my understanding of a dubstep song and music video. For example the cliche of the grime videos would be about location in the streets etc.. however you hardly see DubStep music videos located in areas such as that you tend to see them in clubs, concerts etc... Plus the fact that there are constant shaking in most of their videos as it goes well with the beat. Therefore YouTube helped me to see the differences and some similarities from other genres or visual effects from other genre music videos that i found quite amazing to add to our video. As shown above the Pixie Lott visual effect.

Another site that i have used over the internet for my research methods is the actual Nero Site.



This was a good site for research for many reasons, First of all the latest news on the band and the concert dates are on the site which is good so we can keep up to fate with the DubStep group. It helped me a lot with my advertisements. Furthermore, they have a gallery which i looked at to to get some ideas on the sub-step genre which was good research as i needed it for my ancillary products.

Here are the list of shows which gave me some idea on my advertisement.



Here is a video made by me using the software ishowu to show why i used nero as a site for research.


How i used photoshop (For the construction of my ancillary products)?
So to start of with why did i use photoshop rather than any other editing software. It is simply the reason that Photshop is known for its amazing editing tools for images as it specialises in that field.Such as creating different graphics, Being able to restore old photos, can allow me to change the colour, and can correct mistakes from photographs and many more.


First of all i decided to do a simple 2 pak digi pak which was a lot more simple and easy to use. To be able to do this we needed to open up a template.



Then i imported my picture of choice.




Also i was able to change the colour if i did not find it suitable(not final product this was during the process). This was good because you can edit certain parts of the image and change the colour and add effects if wanted.




these are the final ones once the colour has changed here is the original (at the start).



Also i used Photoshop to choose the specific font i wanted which i imported it from font case and the font is called 'Bambi Bold'. This was chosen as it was bold and striking just like most of the dubstep fonts we have checked on the internet.



Final cut pro for editing- did i use any particular effects, for example?

Flashing shots,earthquake,blur, slowmotion, colour contrast/brightness changed,Reverse and more were the effects we used for our music video.

Flashing shots.(ignore the talking in the background)




Blur and slow motion




Earthquake.





Colour brightness effect.








Reverse.



Reflection of the dancer.