Draft Q4 -How Did you use media technologies in the construction and research - (written content for Prezi)

 Draft Q4 - How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Blog - To organise and record aspects of research and planning for my 3 media productions I created a new blogger to serve as host for many of my posts and productions. Blogger's ease of use and ability to embed documents allowed me to work with other web-based applications such as Prezi, Slideshare, and Padlet to allow me to present my ideas and research in clear interactive ways.  The integration between Prezi and blogger allowed me to mind map several ideas during the planning process of my productions allowing me to come up with several concepts on one canvas. This was especially helpful and with Bloggers ease of organisation via its labels system in which I could categorise my posts under a subject.  So say  if later in the future If I was stuck and I needed to remind myself of what to include within my productions or I wanted to use an old idea which at the time I didn't like as much I could simply go back to my blog and find said presentation under a post.

Prezi and its integration with Blogger also allowed me to organise my research and communicate my ideas with ease. In terms of research specifically if I wanted to further understand a certain aspect of a subject I was exploring i.e. the possible audience of Breakbot, Prezi allowed me to skip to the certain slide with a simple click.

Images of Padet, Slideshare and prezi Embeded

Image of Blogger labels

In terms of planning all three of my productions, I tend to produce many sketches in pencil to generate Ideas. Both Blogger and Prezi allowed me to present my scans and allow viewers to zoom into the fine details as well as annotations produced for viewers and myself that can be seen around these sketches.

Image of  screencap of sketches

Using Padlet when planning my Digipak cover, Blogger's ease of embedding 3rd party sites allowed me to embed a Padlet wall I produced which similar to Prezi allowed me to organise and mind map several concepts on one document allowing me easy access to these ideas in the future via bloggers labels system.

In terms of both planning and research, Blogger also allowed me to embed a Pinterest wall I had produced for my Digipak advert, which was centred on late 70's and 80's graphic design to serve as visual reference for the production of my Print ad.

Screen cap of Both Padlet and pinterest wall embeded

Bloggers embedding tools also allowed me to embed Slideshare productions which were used to upload word or PowerPoint documents as well as an InDesgin music video treatment to the web and in turn my blog. These documents ranged from shooting maps to help with the plan of where I would film within my chosen locations to a mind map of logo ideas for a Digipak as well as presenting my research about genre conventions within print ads. I also used Slideshare to document and show the process of how I produced props such as the Robot's head in the development of my music video as well as compiling photo images in a slide to present ideas such as ideal shooting locations for my music video.

Images of Powerpoint, InDesign and Robot head construction slide

Blogger also allowed me to embed Gifs I produced in Photoshop as well as Jpeg images which normally included things such as visual reference, examples, inspirations, drafts of my Digipak and print ad and the outcome of my Digipak and print ad etc. The use of Gifs allowed me to animate my images and present viewers concept images/videos of elements I would like to feature in my music video such as stop motion experiment. Sometimes these Gifs were used for illustrating and animating my photo editing process for my Digipak and Print ad as well as presenting a lenticular cover mock up version of my Digipak.

Screencap of Stop motion animation post and lenticular cover

Blogger also allowed me to embed YouTube video and create hyperlinks to other sites and products. This helped during the planning and research stage of my productions as well as allowing me to present my music video directly on my Blog. During planning and research YouTube's integration with blogger allowed me to link visual inspirations such as other music videos and upload drafts of my music video as well as audio edits I had produced of my chosen song in order to make it more manageable for a music video format. In addition YouTube and Blogger's integration allowed me to upload video concepts in preparation for my video for example I uploaded a slow motion experiment I produced using after effects and Photoshop to YouTube and then embedded this to my blog allowing me to clearly illustrate an idea I had for my video visually. 

Screen cap of post with youtube embeding

In addition, Blogger's embedding functions allowed me to embed screen grabs of survey monkey results I had received during my audience research stage. This allowed me to communicate both to viewers and me visually a summary of what my Questionnaire had found on potential target audiences. This also allowed me to direct my music video towards appealing to a target audience by referring to the graphs from survey monkey embedded on my blog allowing me to consume the important information with ease and base some of the aesthetic options of my video on this.

Finally Bloggers ability to add html code to the site allowed me to present my chosen artist's song through a unique and clear way by embedding the song itself on my site via the SCM music player. Initially I had it set that Burnin fever would play upon visiting my blog however this would have been slightly distracting for those wanting to read content. On the other hand, it is still possible to play the song via the play button on the top. This helped for idea generation during the planning stage since If I wanted more ideas on what I could include during segments of the track I could play the song at the top of my page whilst looking over my previous posts of influences and research.

Screencap of Survey monkey post and SCM player

Music Video - For My Music Video, I primarily worked with a small Sony HDR-HC9 camera. This allowed capturing intricate shots that would've proved to be hard to capture working with a larger camera such as the tracking shot of the hands typing. In addition to this, I used a tripod to keep my shot steady however there were times in which I used my arm for a deliberate paparazzi shaky cam effect. I also used a tracking dolly to achieve tracking shots as well as building a tracking dolly out of Lego's to achieve tracking shots in close quarter places. In terms of sound equipment, this was not needed as I was working with music video and thus removed any diagetic sound when editing. I also relied on natural lighting for my music video however sometimes I set up shots by shooting in a dark room and using a computer monitor as a light source to convey a sinister atmosphere.

Images of Sony camera and lego tripod

During the post production stage of my video I worked with Final Cut Express, I movie, and Adobe After Effects. Final cut served as my main editing tool as it allowed me to layer footage one over, edit sound files and cut and edit individual clips. Final cut helped when it came to the complex edits of my videos such as cropping clips to around less than a second in order for said clips to play and cut on beat achieving a desired flashing effect as seen during the sample footage sequences. Due to the many cuts and stop motion movement I had planned within my video, Final cuts layering system was very helpful as I could cut a selection of footage, copy and paste this several times  and then underneath have another layer of footage to create the look of one shot cutting to another one and then time it to cut back to the same shot with ease. This can be particularly seen around 2:03 - 2:07 as cuts from a panning shot to a close up then to another close up and then back to this panning shot playing underneath. 

Images of final cut, I movie and after effects logo's

Screen shot of Final cuts layering system

Embed youtube clip/edit of burnin fever - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRKL1217yl8&feature=youtu.be

Initially, Inspired by Aphex Twin Windowlicker I wanted to utilise a slow motion effect to convey a distorted atmospheric look to my video in certain sequences set within the office. However, Final Cuts Slow motion effect I felt wasn't smooth enough to show a realistic look to this slow motion hence I used the editing software's fast forward feature, speeding up my certain clips by adjusting the speed and thus creating this robotic fast paced look to the movement. This fast paced movement also helped in amplifying the fast pace of the track. Additionally, Final cut allowed me to apply visual filters to shots making them much more aesthetically pleasing or helping to convey a theme or mood such as the use of Hue and saturation, which allowed me to emphasises a more upbeat and whimsical look in certain sequences. This with the static TV effect also allowed me to create the look of the "digital world" within my video allowing me to visual distinguish want was the real world and what was the world presented within computers.

Screen caps of applying each effect

Fast motion

Hue and Saturation

TV Static

Moreover, although quite basic, final cut featured a sound editing feature that allowed me to remove any unwanted diagetic sound and fade out my chosen track via manipulating the wavelength of the mp3 file.  Due to the length of my chosen track and issues with handling such a large cast, I had to fade out my video and track around the 3:51 mark making a condensed version of my video. As a result of this not only did I fade out my music but I also faded out my footage via the fade to black transition function on Final cut. Final cut also allowed me to edit the size of the frames of my footage. Using this and Final cuts layering system this allowed me to create visually dynamic jump cuts with not only the content of the shot changing but also the size of frame around it. This was used also to differentiate what was within the "digital world" of my media production and what wasn't.  Finally, Final cut's layering system and key frame animation tools allowed me to create smart transitions and fades.  For instance by placing one layer of footage over another and key frame animating the opacity levels of the top layer, I was able to fade one shot to another shot of a chicken hitting a wall. However, this technique allowed me to time the chicken hitting the wall roughly on beat by having the chicken layer play on top of the previous footage while on 0% opacity until I animated the opacity percentage to go up to 100 at a certain time.

Screen caps of wavelength feature in Final cut

Screen cap of key framing opacity

During the planning stage of my video, I had noticed that my track was possibly too long for such complex editing and featured many repetitive sequences that didn't offer any new changes for me to interpret visually in a different way as the time constraints offered hence using Garage Band I also edited my chosen track making it more condense. I removed around 87 seconds of sound in different sections of the track allowing me to move onto different moments of my initial storyboard idea easier. For example  Because I edited the music I could move from the office scenes  to the shots set at home easy since there is now a change in sound and as a result the office scene's don't become stale and repetitive.

Screencap of me editing in Garage Band

Other software I used during the planning and construction my music video was the ipad app Real World ASCII. Inspired by a fan made music video of Com Truise which used ASCII art to convey themes of technology and software, I too wanted to use this visual style for similar effect. This meant firstly experimenting with the trail version to see if I could recreate a similar effect and then eventually using it and my ipad to film a close up shot of lips uttering the lyrics. To film this shot using the ipad's multi task options I downloaded the mp3 file of Burnin Fever to my ipad and played the lyrical sample of  in the background to us filming on the app allowing my actor listen and lip sync the words.

Image of Ipad
Image of Real world ASCII logo
Image of lips during music video

Adobe after effects helped with more of the complicated special effects featured within my video such as the glitch art sequences, kinetic type and title card of the music video. I chose after effects for its reputation for being an industry standard special effects program in film as well as my familiarity with it. After a key frame animation system which allowed me to time and animate certain effects such as the glitch effects movement to amplify the scratchy nature of the music during certain sequences as well as timing the duration of type and animating type transitions during the kinetic type sections and the title cards self typing title effect I made. In addition, after effects versatility with other softwares allowed me to import an mp3 file format of the vocal sample of the track "like a fever Burnin and let the love with feel".  This helped when syncing the kinetic type in time with the words of the track as I could import the mp3 file and then key frame animate my type based on the timing of the sound on the timeline. After effects and Photoshop also have strong synergistic qualities allowing me to import gifs developed on Photoshop to after effects. This allowed me to achieve the Burnin text animation seen in my video by importing a Gif of fire from Photoshop to after effects and then applying a mask to the flames to place them within the type.

Screen cap of After effects - Glitch effect
Screen cap of kinetic Type sequence - Burnin
Screen cap of Key framing

I movie although considerably more basic than Final cut served as a tool for me to make easy stop motion animations as well as a converter for my after effect files to something Final cut could use. To create the stop motion animated effect within my video I had to shoot several shots of the same scene constantly but slightly adjust the scene to make it seem as if elements within the shot are moving. I movie allowed me to mount all these shots onto a timeline simply and then adjust the duration of these shots to about 0.04 seconds to create seamless movement.  I movie also allowed me to resolve a problem around file formats as I found that Final cut would not accept certain files such as mp4 during importing and this was the only file format I could render in After effects which featured good video quality without eating too much memory. I movie, allowed me to import mp4's and convert them to QuickTime files which could be easily used in Final cut. I movie allowed me to import my footage filmed on camera to computer. By importing my film via I movie not only did this help in organising my clips as they could all be found under one file but also when editing in Final cut this made sure that when I adjusted a clip whilst editing ,I didn't have to constantly keep rendering thus making the editing process less time consuming.

Image of editing in Imovie

Print productions - For my print productions, I worked mainly with Photoshop, after effects, InDesgin and illustrator during the production stage of my prints. Moreover, I used Pinterest during the research and planning phase of my production to build visual reference for the outlook of my magazine ad as well as the possible graphical style towards the front of my Digipak. Before constructing my Print productions during the research and planning stage, I used tools such as Slideshare and Prezi to present any logo designs and mock up sketches I had produced. The logo's I had produced prior the construction stage of my Digipak was produced via adobe illustrator. Using illustrators vector graphic format this allowed me to test out logos and see what fonts best suit each other so that in the future when picking my favourite design I simply place the vector image in Photoshop which due to its vector format will allow me to re size and adjust without any loss in quality.  

Photoshop, After Effects, InDesign and Illustrator logos
Screencap of logo mind map on illustrator

Producing sketches traditionally and then presenting them on Prezi allowed me to generate ideas and think in detail what elements from my music video should be presented on my print productions and how. By presenting them all on Prezi I had one place to access all these mock up designs easily and thus in turn allowed me to take elements from the designs I felt were strongest to develop a mock up sketch and eventually the final products. During this sketching stage, I also used Padlet to organise still shots from my music video as well as photographs taken whilst shooting my music video that could possibly work as artwork for my Digipak. The choices of these stills and photos were based on the idea of whether they conveyed themes of the video successfully as well as how interesting they were compositionally. Eventually, during the planning stage of my Digipak decided to a completely new photo based on one of my sketch designs to better summarise themes of my video on print. This photo would be used for my front cover whereas the stills from my music video and photographs taken during the videos shoot will be used as internal artwork to create synergy between print and music video.

Image of Sketches with Padlet

Before moving onto the production of my Digipak using InDesgin I printed out a small 6 panel net of a Digipak to construct in order for me to gain a better understanding in how a 6 panel Digipak can fold and where each art panel is placed against each other. This allowed me to plan my on panels via Prezi to see what stills best complimented each other.

Image of 6 panel test digipak
 

After this, I started to work on my Digipak front cover by firstly setting up a photoshoot in a dark room to take the appropriate picture for my production. Then using Photoshop I edited the photo by cropping out elements of the image to fit on a Digipak canvas and then using brightness and contrast and the levels function I adjusted the lighting of the photo to direct viewers gaze towards the computer seen on the front of the image. In addition, I also applied a hue and saturation filter upping the saturation of the image in a selected area to bring out the colours to make the image more appropriate for an electronic album as well as further draw viewers gaze.

Image of photos from Photoshoot

Using After effects I imported my Digipak front cover photo and applied a glitch effect to further develop the synergy between Digipak and music video and then exported this image back to Photoshop to develop on these details. This glitch effect process was also used on the internal art panels (the stills from the photoshoot and music video) to create a consistent computer theme throughout my product.

Screen cap of editing via After effects

On top of this for my Digipak front cover, I also added a scanline filter via Photoshop's layer blending system to bring out the colours of my Digipak and further push a computer feel on my cover.

Screen Cap of Photoshop Layering system

Photoshop allowed me to import logos I had produced earlier in illustrator as well as edit them adjusting the font chosen for my artists name to a similar style of the logo he uses on his website. Photoshop also allowed me to create type via the type tool, this helped when producing the internal artwork as well as editing the subtitle of my album cover to make it have an old static tv effect on it.

Image of my Tropiika logo compared to his
Image of Subtitle with tv static effect

When producing the internal artwork I firstly I adjusted my stills/photographs from the shoot by clone stamping any imperfections within the image and then applying a glitch effect. After this, the image would be resized with a black background around it and underneath I would apply pixel type to achieve the look of a video game graphic in order to keep the computer theme consistent throughout my Digipak.

Embed youtube video of gif of process of internal artwork

The old static effect on the subtitle of my Digipak was created by layering three copies of the subtitle over one another and adjusting the colour of each layer and then changing the bending mode. I then adjusted the position of them to create this digital distortion look to them.

Embed youtube video of gif of process

Similar to Illustrator, Photoshop allowed me to create vector objects and shapes. This was primarily used during the production of the back cover my artwork as I would work with Photoshop's shapes and type function to create a vector design based off of a commodore 64 load screen to further push the computer theme on my Digipak. Photoshop also allowed me to recolor elements such as the barcode and record label in order to keep the colour theme consistent as well as the computer theme.

During the construction of the physical Digipak, I downloaded six panel Digipak and then mounted my images on each slide. After this, I printed out the net to scale and constructed the product using scissors and glue.

Image of back cover next to commodore load screen
Image of photoshops shape function in use
Image of photoshop recolouring
Image of Digipak and Digipak net

Unlike My Digipak, my print ad was constructed entirely via Photoshop by importing my Digipak cover without type onto an A3 canvas and then editing it via a vintage grainy filter to make it look like a distressed old magazine ad inspired by my visual reference of old computer ads.  I then added type via the type tool and included appropriate graphics and logos such as a link to a digital distributor and the proposed record label logo my artist would work under.

Image of my magazine ad compared to old computer ad

For both my print productions, I decided to use the Ed Banger Record label as the proposed record label that would be the most suitable for my artist to work under.  From my research into target audience Ed Banger Records are a label, which only house electronic type of music under their label. Since my artist produces electronic type of music himself, such a label would help in finding him a dedicated and specific target audience. In addition from my research the way Ed Banger visually promotes there artists seems quite similar and suitable to how I attempted to promote my artist though the music video. One could argue that both me and Ed Banger attempt to promote their artists through illustrative and abstract styles. It is because of this similarity in artist promotion that I also believe that Tropiika would work well under the Ed Banger Record since the way I have promoted Tropiika via the music video shouldn't seem so alien to Ed Banger Record's audience since based on my research they would be used to this sort of abstract yet colourful style.

Image of ED Banger Records and ED Banger album art and promotional tools
Screen shot of all 3 media products produced

On my print ad these logos such as the Ed Banger Record logo and the iTunes logo were re-coloured via the FX tool to fit in with the colour scheme of the overall graphic. Also in the within the iTunes logo I edited the logo of the apple to make it look like the apple logo used from the late 70's and throughout the 80s in order to push the retro theme throughout my ad.

Image of original unedited  iTunes logo
Editted logo
Image of 80's apple logo

Finally, one last addition I made on my magazine ad was the inclusion of a working QR code which linked to my music video upon its scan. I created this QR code via QR code generator, an online app that allows people to create working QR codes. This was included on my print add to further add synergy to my print products making my print ad both promote the Digipak attached to my music video as well as the music video itself.

Screencap of QR code generator

Technologies used for evaluation questions

Question 1 - Video commentary/ YouTube to allow me to discuss my ideas and show my inspirations visually

Question 2 -

Question 3 -

Question 4 - Prezi to organise and present the many layers of my product clearly as well as its versatility with image and video embedding