Advanced Production

Monday, 21 March 2016

Group: Concept Development Update

Since our last concept development post, we have changed our idea significantly. Despite still using two brothers in our piece, we have since decided to show me and George when we were younger. To do this, we have incorporated Dylan (3 years of age) and Corey (6 years of age) to be the 'younger' brothers in our newly altered piece. This will be effective as we can construct a parallel between George and I when we were younger, using Dylan and Corey to show this. As well as this, we have also experimented with many different filters, including a black and white filter. We would like to use this filter to show George depressed after his brothers death, and we will use a lot of colour, as George flashes back to the memories that him and his brother shared (Through Dylan and Corey).

Group: Storyboard examples

Below are three examples of the storyboarding we have been doing in class, these storyboards represent the first part of the track (the first scene) following a boy in his bedroom shown as upset and having a hard time, a montage edit will show him at his desk, in his bed and in other areas around his room.

Tuesday, 5 January 2016

Tom Wiles 9201: Final Production and Evaluation

Video:

Digipak:

Advert:

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination your main product and ancillary products?

Evaluation Question 3: What did we learn from our audience feedback?

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

Throughout the project, we produced a collaborative e-portfolio by utilizing web 2.0, in particular the website www.blogger.com. We used this website in a number of ways, fundamentally to combine both individual posts and group posts to show progression throughout.

Using Web 2.0 made this process a lot quicker, often giving us more lesson time to work on our concept or continue to edit via Premiere Elements or Photoshop aspects of the promotional campaign.

Having each post available on Blogger meant reviewing each piece of work was also quicker and easier to navigate, really helping the organization of each member of our group. Furthermore, when navigating through the posts, the use of visual evidence was convenient and helped me to illustrate each point I was making, this in turn made each step of the project clear and any updates we had come across. The image above shows the navigation page on blogger, clearly listing all posts in order of date, stating who published each post and its title, improving communication and organization throughout the project.

Visual evidence was vital during the research stage, where description and analyzing different promotional products was a key factor. Without the use of visual evidence, the text would have been excessively long and uninteresting, an example of this was the ability to embed videos from Youtube and presentations via Prezi.com.

This is an example of this, taken from my technical analysis post, showing how helpful the multimedia website was during analysis and research.

Another feature Blogger offers which I utilised, was the ability to comment on my group members posts, acting as research, this allowed me not only to get feedback from teachers on how to improve my work, but also allowed me to tell my group members which aspects of each post I liked and could therefore incorporate into our own work, for example the comment shown below.

To carry out research we used Survey Monkey which was useful in a number of ways. Principally, the templates provided by the website are easy and simple to understand meaning the construction of the surveys were quick, being used after completing our pitch and to gather responses for the evaluation. The use of Survey Monkey shows progression from AS as we had the ability to send the survey to a larger proportion of people from a range of demographics, eliminating bias in the responses and reaching more people than just classmates (which we did for AS). This is an example of Web 2.0 as it is an online survey company with responses sent online, showing progression from AS as we only gave handouts.

Furthermore the responses from Survey Monkey were already analysed and showed which answers were selected most, this was true for the closed questions, not the open ones. An example of this is shown to the left, providing the answers for which filming techniques people would liked to have seen in our video, we then took these answers into consideration before constructing our video.

This was also shown in our evaluation for responses for question 3, helping us to decide which part of the promotional campaign people liked most and why as well as the weaknesses and the understanding of our video narrative.

To show further progression, we also filmed some interviews as visual evidence of peoples real life views, allowing for a more detailed response with a lot more content for us to analyse, we compiled this information into a video, shown below:

When shooting we used HD cameras, in particular the Canon EOS 600D which we fitted onto a stabilizer to give the smooth motion in many of the shots in the video. We were particularly pleased with the quality of the clips after adding the black and white filter on them in Premiere Elements, this was because the lighting in the shots were always of a high quality and many of the smooth movements that went with this really made the shots visually effective; the lighting was also of high quality in the images taken for the digipak and advert, such as the sun shining down on the two children next to the tree on the advert and the well lit picture of the artist on the digipak, with the well toned shadows in the background. Some of my favourite shots were from the bedrooom scene at the start of the video purely due to how the lighting came out after editing, an example is shown to the right.

I conducted some practice shots before we started filming to make sure the quality was correct, I then posted my findings on the blog, this helped as we were assured that the camera was capable of what style we wanted to represent.

There were few challenges that occurred during the project, however the major challenge occurred after the first shoot, taking place at Harry's house filming the bedroom scenes. When reviewing the footage we realised that due to insufficient lighting in the room, most of the footage had come out blurry and dark. The location itself was also very small making it hard to move around with the camera. To overcome this, we organised a re-shoot taking place in my room instead, this location had plenty of room for camera movements as well as provided the lighting from the windows that gave these scenes a fairly emotional tone.

We also had some issues with the stabilizer, it was often hard to keep stable making shots shaky and less effective, to overcome this I practiced frequently with the equipment to make sure I knew how to stabilize the camera and in the most time efficient way. To the right are some images from the shoot in the bedroom, as you can see from the top image there was little space next to the bed to capture and review footage. The bottom image shows me struggling to use the stabilizer initially.

To edit the video, I used Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0, there were various processes and methods I used to edit the video.

One of the major processes was to review all of our footage, mainly coming from the Bedgebury shoot which was the bulk of our video. I positioned clips in the timeline in a certain way, I made sure to always relate the cutting rate of the video to the pace of the song. I started the video slowly, showing the sad timeline of the 1 brother, then gradually started to incorporate clips of the brothers when they were together, both young and older, using clips of the brother alone juxtaposed to clips of the two brothers in the same location when young. To add the after effects, I went to the edit toolbar and selected the 'colour pass' effect, shown in the picture above. I added this to all clips of the older brother alone and by going to properties, I altered the similarity of this effect to look right with the lighting, which was different in different locations.

To edit the clips in colour, we exported the video and added it into after effects, using the 'scissor', cut tool to break up all the clips that were in colour, then adding an oval vignette effect to give the clips the look that they are memories and from the past.

One of my main tasks was to produce the 'fades' used in our video, in which the two brothers would be seen together but the brother who has died slowly fades away out of the shot. To do this I overlapped two of the same shots (shown in the picture by the red line going through the two blue clips), one with both brothers and one with only one brother. I would use the zoom tool to make sure that the scale and positioning of the camera in both clips was exactly the same, if not, I would alter the scale and positioning by accessing the motion toolbar in properties and moving one clip ever so slightly until both clips looked the same.

I would then add key frames to one of the clips, one frame at the start of the clip and one towards the end. At this first keyframe I would make sure the opacity of the clip containing the brother was at 100% so that he is clearly visible, and at the end key frame I would bring this opacity to 0%, this gave the effect that the brother slowly fades out of shot, representing that he is gone. The picture to the right shows the opacity and colour pass toolbars, to the right of this is the two key frames of the clips, the red line represents the part of the clip I have paused it at, in between these two key frames, therefore giving a half faded effect.

With some of the fades I would also change the colour as the brother fades, to do this I did the exact same process but used the 'colour pass' effect instead of the opacity tool.
I also frequently used the time stretch tool, in which I would often alter the speeds of shots to match the speed of the following clip. Often, if the movement of the camera in one clip was the opposite to that in the next clip, I would click the reverse speed button to put a clip into reverse and make the movements seem similar. The picture below is a screenshot from one of the clips I reversed.

We used Adobe Photoshop to edit the images used in our printwork. To create our final advertisement we used a range of colour corrections to make the image more eye-catching as well as have a colourful visual style like many of Jack Garratt's EP's like 'Chemical' and 'Breathe Life'. We first decided on the font, taking inspiration from Jack Garratt's print work and using programmes like fontspring.com to find a font similar. To get the style of the 'A's' in the artists name, we used simple rectangular selection tools to select and delete part of the A.

To give the black shadow effect on the artist name we used tools 'drop shadow' and 'inner glow' and adjusted the size of the shadow. Moving on to the colouring used in the advert, the mixture of red, black and green we added a new layer to the image, primarily making the image black and white by going to the enhance tool and selecting convert to black and white, using the sliders to decide how light or dark to make this layer.

We then added two gradient mixes of colour, choosing red and green as we thought it was eye-catching and contrasted with the black and white well. We chose to add this colour scheme across all of our printwork as we thought it had connotations of the binary between light and dark and their resulting connotations (sadness and hapiness) which was also used in the video, constructing a cohesive band image. We also reused the typography process on the digipak, most obviously using it for the artists name and album name on the front cover, we also used it for the track listing on the back pane of the digipak. We decided to list the tracks down the side of the headphones, we did this by writing the tracks in the same font size and dragging and positioning them onto the picture, making sure the gaps between the tracks were the same using and scale and sizing tools. We also altered the hue and saturation of this image so that the red and green colouring was more visable as well as the shadows created by the headphones.

The middle panes of the digipak were fairly simple, we used the same colour scheme and gradient mix however this time we had to make the image lighter. Making the picture lighter gave the shadow effect on the floor of the picture, almost with a sort of line going down the middle of the path. This was made simple by utilising the hue and saturation tool. Using the colour balance and density tools, we were able to split the picture between red and green, doing this because as it is a middle panel there will be a fold in the middle, making one side red and one side green upon opening the digipak.

Blog Posts:

Tuesday, 29 December 2015

George Thresher 9188: Final Production and Evaluation

Digipak

Advertisement

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary products?

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

Web 2.0

www.Blogger.com was the e-portfolio we used to collaborate all of our planning, progress and our evaluations throughout the entire production process. Blogger enabled us to portray our own individual findings, as well as displaying the work we produced as a group. Furthermore, Blogger allowed us to plan every aspect of our production, and edit them whenever an idea developed or altered. For example, the treatment we created was eventually altered completely, but the process in which we developed our ideas is evident along the timeline of posts, which was also, very easy to navigate since all the dates and post authors are labelled clearly.

We also made use of www.surveymonkey.com as another form of Web 2.0 to help gather an insight into how audiences interpret our music video, digipak and advert. We distriuted a variety of open and closed questions, of which we received approximately 20 responses. Survey Monkey was extremely useful in creating the statistical data for us, offering us an insight into percentages for each question. This in-turn, allowed to view what concise changes we could make to our music video and print work.

www.youtube.com also provided a great source, in terms of research. When analysing our chosen artist, Jack Garratt, we had to note certain characteristics regarding his music videos. Such as the naturalistic settings he uses, in which we were able to reflect through our location of the woods. We were also able to analyse the stock clothing he uses as well as the lack of props, leaving for a more authentic and personal representation.

Hardware

The camera we used was a Canon EOS 600D, the same camera we used to film our opening horror film sequence at AS level. We established one of the main strengths of our AS work to be the use of the pull focus shots, so we incorporated them into our music video for A2. It was also evident from our audience research that the pull focus shots and the tracking shots were favoured by the our demographic. Furthermore, the valuable camera meant the clarity of each shot was exceptional (1080p), offering more visually effective shots, where colours were more vibrant and therefore more meaningful, since the use of colour grading and contrast was vital in our representations of youth and childhood.

The Canon was also capable of shooting high resolution shots, whilst being able to store them in large quantities, as well as maintaining a long lasting battery. This saved us time since we only made one visit to each location of shooting, and enabled us to shoot for however long we needed and gain a large number of shots to choose from in the editing process.

Editing

The editing software we used was Adobe Premiere Element 9.0. Throughout our AS editing process we never encountered issues in terms of difficulty when editing because it involved simply cropping clips and inserting layers of sound over the top of them, which was simply a matter of time rather than technique. However, when editing our music video we wanted to incorporate a series of fades to signify Harry's death, which was both a time consuming process, as well as a challenging one. For example, we had to match two sections of the clip with one another, so when the fade occurred we maintain continuity. It was, nevertheless, successful when completed. Furthermore, we included intercuts between the past and present day with the children walking passed a tree followed by the intercut of George walking past in order to connote reminiscing and the fact time had passed. This meant splitting each clip in half, and then weaving them together. We also made use of colour grading throughout the video in order to segregate the intercuts and avoid confusion between the past and the present, and also to convey a sombre tone. One of the most challenging editing process was fading an entire shot from colour to black and white, whilst timing it in conjunction with Harry fading out of shot. This was another time consuming process that eventually succeeded.

Lastly, the primary objective when editing was to ensure the shot cuts matched the beat of the soundtrack, otherwise the video would look unprofessional and disjuncted. This, again, was a time consuming process since when adjusting a clip previously edited to synchronise with the beat of the soundtrack, it would desynchronise the clips that followed it.

Software

Finally, we used Photoshop to create our digipak and advert. We gathered a series of images from our shoots in order to edit in Photoshop, one of which was a profile shot of Tom Whitson, who shared certain characteristics with our artist Jack Garratt (mainly the beard and hat). We adjusted the font 'Typographica' so it would share the same style as Jack Garratt's, with the iconic 'A' missing the left slant. The colour scheme of red, green and black was used in order to match the music video. For example, one of the younger actors wears a bright red shirt, and the older actor, George, wears dark clothing, making the video relatable to the digipak. We also altered the entire background, since the image was taken in front of a green screen. However, we simplymade the background blank so we could overlay it with the colour scheme. The back pane of the digipak features a pair of headphones. We used the headphones in order to keep the artist relatable, and remind the audience of that fact he's a recording artist. From there, we used the same colour scheme, and adjusted the saturation in order to increase the vibrancy of the colours. Lastly, we added the 'Island Records' and other various logos to the final image, as well as a barcode for a more realistic and representative look. Our middle panes were constructed with the image taken from our Bedgebury shoot, in which we attained a visually attractive still image of two tree lines. This not only relates the digipak back to the music video, but also looked effective when spread across two panes.

When creating our advert, we wanted to keep it relative to the music video and the digipak; we accomplished this by using the same colour scheme throughout. In terms of the typography, we used the same 'Typographica' font used in the digpak, however due to the background colours interfering with the colour of the text we originally wanted, we had to colour each word uniquely, as seen here.

The main challenge we faced was deciding upon the narrative resolution. We initially implied the death of the brother by showing George placing the picture of him back on a desk, however we replaced the scene with a graveyard scene in order to confirm the death of the brother.

Research

Print Analysis- Jack Garratt
Camera Techniques Analysis
Technical Analysis
Promotional Campaign Analysis
Moodboard 1
Moodboard 2
Comparison of Two Music Videos
Justin Bieber Analysis
Audience Research 1
Audience Research 2

Planning

Concept Development
Potential Digipak Designs
Filming Schedule
Pitch Progression From AS
Treatment

Logistics

Logistics and Planning
Call Sheet and Risk Assessment 1
Call Sheet and Risk Assessment 2
Call Sheet and Risk Assessment 3
Call Sheet and Risk Assessment 4

Production

Reflection on Shoot 1
Reflection on Shoot 2
Reflection on Shoot 3
Reflection on Shoot 4
Brighton Practice Shoot
Digipak Production Task

Post-Production

Advert Progress 1
Advert Progress 2
Advert Progress 3
In-Class Individual Role

Friday, 18 December 2015

Harry Garside 9070: Final Production and Evaluation

Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Evaluation Question 2: How effective is the combination your main product and ancillary products?

Evaluation Question 3: What did we learn from our audience feedback?

The target audience for the album/artist is 12-29, this is because of Garratt’s indie pop genre that he often incorporates into his music. This is similar to artists such as Lana del Rey and Adele, who are also placed in this category. Consequently, we are trying to appeal to a wide pop demographic which is stereotypically young, despite some of the serious messages conveyed in Garratt’s music, such as bereavement/break-ups. It was important to test our concept in pre-production to an audience (in our pitch) because we were able to discover the audience expectations for our music video. The results showed us that the narrative (of two brothers both young and old, as well as George alone) was extremely strong, and visually interesting. We also used an audience questionnaire shortly after this process, where we discovered many other expectations from our demographic. This included which shots we should incorporate, for example pull-focus shots and tracking shots. As well as this, we also discovered that our audience believed we should adopt both a slow and fast-cutting rate in our piece. This particular process of a questionnaire gave us several ideas as to what our audience want to see in our music video.

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

We used blogger.com as a collaborative e-portfolio in our group throughout the planning, construction and evaluation. In terms of group posts, it was useful to input clips such as production logs in order to update our progress. As well as this, blogger.com was particularly practical in terms of planning, for example, in posts such as the treatment, where we were all able to contribute to the post using a group login. Furthermore, blogger.com was a very useful form of web 2.0 in terms of individual planning. This is because it enabled me to embed videos and pictures, for example when referring to videos which inspired me e.g. Pull me Down (Mikky Ekko, 2015). Furthermore, I have managed to input more detail into my posts, using more images to allow a better understanding. On the other hand, at AS I used far less images, with the majority of my posts being presented as purely text. This is an example of a far more presentable post in comparison with AS, utilizing web 2.0 to attach images (http://twgsbmedia15a2group9.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/hg-comparison-of-two-music-videos.html). Another progression from AS is the way I have commented on my colleagues' posts, advising them on how we could possibly incorporate their research into our piece. An example of this is below.

Survey Monkey

We carried out audience research prior to our pitch using Survey Monkey, this was useful as we were able to gain a variety of responses, utilizing both open questions and closed questions (which, in particular gave us a more detailed idea from our demographic) Survey monkey was particularly useful as once the results were gathered together, (18 responses in total) it had the ability to put our data into tables/graphs in order to compare our results for each question (there is an example of a graph to the side of this text). This particular result showed us clearly that we should either use a slow-cutting rate, or interchange between both. Ironically, we utilized both elements in our piece, showing the important of the results to our final product. This is an example of web 2.0 as we are using an online survey to generate results from our target audience. As well as this, the previous process was also completed through the use of web 2.0, as I had to email several people inside our demographic to ask them to complete our online survey, with the response rate being fairly high.

Camera

Similarly to AS, we utilised the Canon EOS 600D digital SLR. Because of the quality of the camera, we knew we would be able incorporate focus shots, including pull focus shots. Therefore, in the survey we asked which shots our target demographic would like to see most (the evidence of this question is to the side of this text). This showed that tracking shots, zoom shots and pull-focus shots were the most popular shots, of all of which we managed to shoot in our video. We were very fortunate to be able to use this camera as it meant that our shots were of a higher resolution (600D).

Premiere

To edit the video, we used Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0. The main task that we encountered in Premiere this year was the use of fades, which we hadn't used previously in AS. The image to the side of the text showed how we were able to input a fade into our piece. The circle around the blue segment has a yellow line across it, which controls the efficiency of the fade. We dragged this line diagonally downwards, meaning that the brother would fade out gradually. To complete this process, we had to drag the dissolve transition (which is circled) on to the timeline.

Another task we faced was using the black and white filter to show George in the present. This particular idea challenged conventions of music videos, this is because usually the past would be in black and white and the present would be in colour, meaning that this element of our video was very much unconventional. The screenshot to the side of this text shows the process of the black and white filter in Premiere. The circle at the top right of the image showed the filter we wanted to use (Black and White), we therefore had to drag this filter to the segment of footage we wanted to change (where the other circle is positioned). The use of the black and white filter enabled us to convey the mood dejected and solemn mood of George, which coincided with the flashbacks to the brothers when they were younger.

Photoshop

In Adobe Photoshop, we completed our whole digipak and advertisement campaign. In terms of the digipak, this is evidence of the front cover. We decided on an image of Tom, who looks similar to our artist Jack Garratt (in terms of his clothing, iconic hat and beard). In terms of the typography, I used a font named 'Typographica' which is similar to the font that Jack Garratt uses. As well as this, after doing some research into Garratt, he has a stylistic feature in his typography where he cuts off a section of the letter 'A' which we replicated in each of our panes. In terms of the editing of this pane, I originally decided on black and white, however, a colourful pane is more conventional of our artist (when looking at other EP's such as Remnants) and therefore, we chose to use a red/green/black effect on each our panes for continuity. In terms of the front pane, we used two different gradient colour mixes, selecting the three colours in order to achieve this colour effect. Furthermore, in terms of the typography, we used tools such as 'Drop Shadow', and 'Inner Glow' to make the dark text look more obtrusive on a colourful background. As well as this, at first the image with the gradient mixes was extremely vibrant, which was not the objective due to the solemnity of our campaign. Therefore, I enhanced the contrast and decreased the brightness to create a darker effect.

Photoshop continued

In terms of the middle panes, we chose the tree location at Bedgebury to go across two panes. This is because we wanted to create a parallel to our video, as it is where most of the memories between the brothers take place. For this particular image, we again (similarly to the front pane) enhanced the contrast, however, due to the image already being dark, we also enhanced the brightness. As well as this, we used the hue/saturation tool to further adjust the lighting of the pane. We also utilised the same colour scheme, though, this time it was far easier as we simply had to copy the layer, creating an adjustment layer on the new pane. This meant that the colour scheming for these two panes was almost identical.

Photoshop continued

When discussing the back pane of our music video, we utilised the same colour scheme as the previous pane, creating an adjustment layer and copying the gradient mix into our piece. In terms of the original image, we took a shot focusing on a pair of headphones to connote that Garratt is a recording artist. In terms of the typography, we used the 'Typographica' font for the songs in the album 'Phase', deciding to follow it around the edge of the headphone. Furthermore, when discussing the editing we altered the hue/saturation, as well as using a black and white effect on top of the colour scheme. Furthermore, we also had to add the island records label, a bar code, and also our own record label information, which we inserted into our piece.

Photoshop continued

In terms of our magazine advert, we decided to again create a parallel with our music video, this is because the two brothers are prominent in the advert, as well as the video. To create continuity, we again decided to use the same colour scheme, creating a copy and adjustment layer with the same gradient mix. Despite this, we added many new features which were dissimilar to the digipak, for example the call to action- iTunes logo, the web address and the release date of the album. Also, in terms of the typography we used the same font, though, because of the dissimilar woodland background, we had to make sure it still stood out. Therefore, we had to change the colour from black, to black and white, as well as a drop shadow 3D effect.

Challenges

The challenges we overcame were mainly how to end our video. We had many discussions throughout, but ended up having to film our piece without knowing what the narrative resolution would be, or whether there would even be one. We finally decided on a graveyard scene, connoting that the younger brother had died, meaning that there is a clear distinct ending to the video. Another challenge we faced was deciding whether to have one image across two panes, as we felt we may have been marked down due to the simplicity. Therefore, we had to make it more visually appealing, hence why we used the red and green colour scheming.