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

MILO MARSHALL

Research

Upon starting my research, I was met with the use of varying platforms to present my findings. I was given a variety of programs and online slideshow websites to host my work and show said work as an info-graphic. Most of which I had already encountered before, but had to become acquainted with again before I could progress with a professional outcome. Some of these programs and websites include: Photoshop, Prezi.com, and Microsoft Word.

* This piece could not be used in my final coursework as I had to change the song for copyright reasons. However, I am showcasing it as development, as well as showing which programs I used in my research.

Prezi.com

Link to my Prezi: http://prezi.com/s13_npk0qrpf/goodwins-theory/#

I used Prezi.com first during my Foundation AS year; during which, I found much use for this website as a more practical and effective platform of information than PowerPoint. Its user-friendliness and clean templates make it a presentation site that anyone can use, and use well without having the need for creative experience with artistic programs or info-graphic devices.

Photoshop

In the research stage, I did not have to use Photoshop to create images myself, I rather used it to analyse other images. In this sense, I could have used a variety of other programs, but I chose Photoshop as it was more effective at creating a layout that aided this task. I used Photoshop more extensively during the production stage, but it was more of preference choice for the work I completed through the research period.

Word

This program was my ‘go-to’ for displaying information as I naturally prefer block text over slide shows; it was the best choice for long answers, or essay type questions. Word is a stock favourite for almost all word processing tasks, and had become a very familiar program that I had used extensively in the past from practically all my previous subjects.

Successes

I feel as though the majority of the research stage was a success; in the sense that each task was completed to the specification.

The Prezi work was completed with a practically efficient way of displaying the information, as well as it being in a different form than that of being either block text, or presentation.

The Word work had allowed me to easily choose the layout needed for comparisons and analyses of music videos, Digipaks, and technical aspects of other videos.

Overall the research stage was completed to a degree that I feel was of an in depth nature.

Pre-Production

In the Pre-Production stage, most of my work was completed as a Word document for ease of comparing and analysing. The only exception was creating an animatic; which would involve using Sony Vegas. I would also have to create a questionnaire, this would need the website SurveyMonkey.com.

The Pre-Production stage mostly included getting things ready to start creating our music video; we needed to have a plan for the music video, which was the animatic. And once we had a song choice, we needed evidence to support that we had tried to contact the label of the artist to ask for permission. Upon doing this, we needed to analyse said song to aid with the animatic.

Sony Vegas For creating the animatic, I used Sony Vegas. It was just a matter

of taking photos of our Animatic and placing them into Sony Vegas for render with the song that the animatic was for.

During the process I didn’t actually learn anything; this is because I already had a decent grounding with the program before I started this course. To match the animatic with the song and the aspect ratio of the composition size, I had to change the scale of the image, and crop, as well as making sure to photograph them in the appropriate size to prevent warping or mismatching sizes when I placed the files into Sony Vegas.

Word

The vast majority of my Pre-Production work was completed in this program; I was asked to create written pieces for representation, a full proposal of my ideas, as well as variety of other tasks. I used it in combination with tables, pictures and the written work itself.

Successes

As I already had a strong grounding in Sony Vegas, I was able to quickly and efficiently create my animatic video without issue.

I succeeded in acquiring permission for use of a song for my Music Video, however, a problem did occur with this later.

The only filming that would occur would be at my friend’s house; so permission was given without problem.

Problems

My song permission was nullified when my music video idea was denied by the exam board. The song I had chosen only worked with that song, so I had to pick a new one. The next song I chose I was unable to receive a response from the label, so I had to just state in my video that the song use was for non-profit educational purposes, and this coincided with the “fair use” act.

The animatic was also nullified after my second idea became redundant due to a shortage of cast halfway towards completion. At this stage with 2 months being spent on working towards ideas that had to be cancelled, I was quickly falling behind.

To overcome this happening again, I decided to create an animation that meant that no-one could prevent the video’s completion due to unavailability. The filmed part would this time only have two actors and I would aim to get all the filming done over a period of 2 – 3 days so a very small chance of them deserting me would allow for a highly probable completion.

Production

The Production stage was where the bulk of the marks came to, it involved creating a Digipak, music video, and poster. It involved using 3 programs: Cinema 4D, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Photoshop.

After Effects After Effects is a program that I had used extensively before I started this course; I used it in a variety

of hobbies, so I had a strong grounding with it. It was this reason that I chose it over the other video editing programs available.

After Effects is a program that I preferred over Sony Vegas, and was invaluable when working in 3D space. I was able to create 3D cameras to work with text layers; of which I was able to manipulate x, y, and z rotation. Also, the ability to work in the z plane allowed for little distortion as opposed to having two text layers of different sizes.

With After Effects, there were a variety of effects, transitions and animations that I could mix and match to create a desired effect, many of which were just basic manipulation, because for typographical animations, minimalism often works to your advantage.

Masks were also used extensively in my music video, as I was able to individually animate the layer, as well as its mask to create differing transitions that deviate from the norm.

Parenting layers to other objects also became a necessity for when I had collaborations of two layers I did not want to pre-compose, I would therefor “pick-whip” these layers and parent them to other layers to create 2 layers that acted as one, when changing properties of the “parent” layer, the same changes would be applied to the “child” layer. This meant I had cut the animation time in half for needing only to animate one layer, without having to worry about continuity between them.

The use of the graph editor was impeccable to creating key frames that allowed me to animate movements in any specific way I chose. By using the graph editor I was able to change the velocity of movements from that of a linear movement, to a curved graph of differing gradients.

After Effects was the program I used for my Music Video, as well as my Poster. I chose After Effects over Photoshop to create a still image as it contained the necessary 3rd Party effects required to gain my desired result.

Cinema 4D

Cinema 4D was a program used mostly for 3D modelling, it was for this reason that I chose to use it to create the abstract object shown in my poster. I did not require it for anything else, but it was the best choice for creating the object itself.

To create the object I had to create textures and lights to make sure they interacted with the composition of the object as desired; the lights themselves had to placed in a 3D plane but still acting as a 3 point light rig. Each light created different length shadows and was of differing intensities, this made the texture I had placed on the object better for drawing attention to for the audience.

Photoshop

I used Photoshop to create my Digipak. This worked well as there were a collection of layer styles and filters I could mix and match to aid the connotations of the music. In the end I settled for a grungy cut-out effect that gave the album a “raw” appeal to it.

I used a set of photos of the band, as well as the venues they performed at to recolour them as black and white. To do this I selected the “Hue and Saturation” adjustment and changed the saturation down to a very negative number. After I had done this I selected the “Cut-out” filter to give the photos a fragmentary look.

Successes

Photoshop’s adjustment layers and pre-made filters made creating my desired look quick, as well as intuitive.

After Effects ease of 3D manipulation allowed me to animate multiple layers at once, thus saving time I would have spent animating each independently.

Problems

Finding photos I was allowed to use was at first a tedious task, but after some research, I learned that there is a set filter to sift through the images until it only showed images I could use for photo editing.

Overall

Working in different drives was at first a new thing to me, but over time, I learned to keep constant backups on the school’s shared documents to prevent file corruption critically affecting my project’s completion date.

A late completion time was by far my biggest failure, I know that I could have completed it earlier than I did, but after two failed attempts drastically slicing the amount of time I had to create a music video, I was put off doing it for far longer than anyone would deem acceptable.