Research and Planning
One way which the grouped communicated with each other was through Facebook, a social networking site made available by web 2.0. We created a group for all of us to use, a place where we could easily contact each other and share our ideas.
Facebook allowed us to share documents, video inspirations and plan and arrange shoots. For instance, we could name the actors which we planned to bring to our shoot, plan group meetings and delegate tasks for each other. This was our best method of communication outside of lesson time, and was especially value to us seeing as had a split, with Jess and I in one class and Alex and Narishma the other. This would often prove impractical as in the early stages we could go a whole day without the four of us being together. However, during the later stages we arranged to meet every lunchtime for a summary session of how things are going, where we decided how it was best to progress.
The advantage of Facebook to our group was that everybody knew where they stood, the roles were visible to everybody and everyone had the chance to input and give their views on the project. This is opposed to say Blackberry Messenger and SMS which was used, but to to a lesser extent.
We also used Facebook to get actors for shoots creating public event pages where we could easily invite hundreds of people, thus effectively making sure we get the 16 we were after.
As previously mentioned, we used the Facebook page to share video inspirations, this was done via the video site Youtube.
In the early stages of the product I used the website to research into the rock genre for my Kasabian idea, however I later used it when finding choreographing a dance routine (which at one point was more complicated than the final one!).
I also used it to research the dance genre. In addition, we had quite an observational/documentary style of filming, a style which we researched to conventions of other videos to incorporate in our video.
To a lesser extent we used twitter, setting up an account in our group name so that the teachers could follow our progress as a group. This allowed them to see what stage we were at, as they didn't have the time to ask every day, this proved a great way of communicating with the teachers. We also used our personal accounts to communicate with each other, however, this was not done to the extent of Facebook.
I used Google maps to plan how the locations of shoots, and how we would get to them. Although a simple technology, Google maps were very effective in helping us plan our music video. For instance, we didn't want our train entry set at a dirty area like Southgate as we didn't feel this reflected our feel good and happy video. So instead, we thought that we may as well use where we know works and go to Belsize Park, where the Coldplay video was shot. However, we didn't want to jump to conclusions, know music vidoes can be edited in misleading ways so scouted the area on google street view.
We also used the technology to see whose house was best suitable, seeing as we wanted freedom to film, we worked out who lived in the least busy area before making our decision.
The following blog post for the 'routine shoot' shows all of the techniques mentioned above including email, BBM and SMS services and even Scribbed.
http://latymermusicvideo2011group4.blogspot.com/2011/11/final-shoot.html
Construction
Video
During the construction process we used HDV cameras. Our main camera was the Sony HVR A1E, which allowed us to film in high quality HD footage, as well as providing a whole range depths and focuses as well as providing richer footage in comparison to standard DV footage.
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| Primary Camera |
When filming I learnt how to perfect the technique of manual focussing, and am very proud of one particular shot with a 10 pence coin.
On the routine shoot, we required a second camera. This was a simple Cannon Legria HV40 which also provided good quality HD footage.
Editing
We were assigned an editing suite, this was to aid us in the construction of our video using Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, which was a newer version that what we had previously used in the years before, however many of the tools and editing techniques were exactly the same which meant we were able to work as fast and efficiently as possible on the editing.
The following video shows some of the techniques and effects I used when editing
We colour graded our video by using the 'three way colour corrector tool' and 'brightness and contrast' effect. This was very important because of the many shoots and locations used. This meant we had different lighting levels and different weather conditions so we had to grade them to give them the best match as possible.
Here is a video showing how we used the colour grading tool.
Album cover
For this we used Photoshop CS5, again an updated version. I played a more supporting role with this product as one group member, Jess was very skillful and we wanted to be time efficient. Therefore I focussed on editing while Jess focussed on the cover, constantly asking for each others opinions so as to make sure all products remained a group creation. However, I did help construct some aspects of the cover as well as being heavily involved in the planning stages.
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| Photoshop window |
One technique that was especially helpful was grouping layers into bins, similar to how we had done with our editing. This made our layers much neater and easier to use.
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| Grouped layers |
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| Cannon 550d Website We used a brand new media technology that we had never used before called WIX web designer, flash-based software that was again made available by Web 2.0. Wix allowed us to construct an artist identity for Absynth, forming a website which featured all the conventions of artist’s websites. We produced a professional and realistic website in a simple and efficient manner. The video below shows some of the functions WIX had. WIX also allowed us to produce a mobile website, allowing us to target our intended audience of 16-24year old male and females. This TA are big users of mobiles 24/7, WIX allowed us to create access our artist through their phones, thus utilising the huge development in new media through development in mobile technology |
Just as it was in the planning stages Web 2.0 was a very important technology in the evaluation; for example we posted our final video on YouTube to receive audience feedback, linking this video on Facebook to quickly reach our target audience.
Unfortunately the close proximity to the deadline meant that we did not get substantial feedback of your video, instead relying on our focus group.
Unfortunately the close proximity to the deadline meant that we did not get substantial feedback of your video, instead relying on our focus group.
One feature that we planned to use was YouTube's statistic feature where you can the demographics of our target audience. This will allow us to see if our video is being watched by our target audience or of a younger one, ultimately telling us whether we appealed to the right audience, especially relavant given the feedback from our focus group about younger audience.
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| This shows he format of the stats - would have hoped to achieve an equal weighting of male and females ass both were our target audience. |
We also used Facebook to promote our premier, making a promotional video for it to drum up interest and encourage people to attend. Further promotion took place via the school intranet system with a post, meaning that the whole school new about the screening.
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| Intranet notice |
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