Digital technology has now become vital in the creation of any media text in all stages; pre-production, production and post-production. Furthermore, due to the proliferation of technologies and the availability of these technologies, creating a media text has most certainly become easier and more efficient. Technology has allowed me to create effective, professional-looking products which can be hosted simply online.
Whilst conducting my initial planning and research tasks, I started by using the internet- Web 2.0 in particular Blogger which is the site I have used to host all of my work. Using a blog service allows me to easily upload documents in any format such as moving image or print. For any texts I created on softwares such as Microsoft Word and Powerpoint, I used a hosting website such as Issuu or Slideshare which transforms the document into an easily accessible, viewable format; this makes my blog extremely versatile and will extend my knowledge of other softwares. Another element of Blogger which I feel is helpful is that it automatically organises all uploads by date and label to support navigation. I created the labels of: final products, production logs, planning, research, audience and drafting. If I was then required to edit any posts, I would not have to search through the entirety of the blog.
One website in particular being YouTube. As I was relatively unaware of the band Kodaline, this allowed me to create an artist catalogue of their music, performances and videos so I could then translate this understanding of the band into my own music video. As YouTube is a video hosting site based mainly on user-generated content, I was able to search for other student and non-professional videos which I could analyse to establish the sort of effect and quality of a video that I need to create. YouTube gave me such as broad spectrum of videos so I could see what works the best and the different conventions of music videos. Moreover, during the post-production stages of my music video, I used Premiere tutorials from YouTube to assist in the editing; all of which were easy to follow therefore making the process a lot quicker and more efficient.
In particular for the research stages, I used conventional formats such as Microsoft Powerpoint and Word but for some I decided to use Prezi which is specifically designed for presentations. Prezi allows me to fly around the screen moving between different shots overall making it look more interesting and exciting. Documents such as the narrative of my music video worked more effectively in Prezi as I was able to show step-by-step guide to my music video through the use of arrows for easy navigation.
During the production stage of my music video, I had to utilize as much professional equipment as possible in order to get the best footage. I found the most important aspect of filming is the lighting. For this, I used 800W Redhead Studio Lights; these allow for authentic performance lighting and if used in the correct way, makes the footage crisp and clear. With regards to lighting, placement is key. I used these as back lighting which washes out the background so all of the focus is then put onto the actors. Moreover, the Red Head lights allow you to adjust the positioning, height and depth of light which are all essential in order to lighting the performance correctly. I found that having higher up pointing down onto the actors created less shadows which is an effect I aimed to create.
The lighting then corresponds with the camera; whilst shooting I used a Canon 550D SLR camera. As this was a digital camera as opposed to analogue, it meant I was able to instantly view the footage which was essential in the long-run as it meant I could see whether anything needed to be re-filmed directly after filming saving having to conduct a second shoot. Similarly, I was able to shoot everything directly to an SD card which held around 60 minutes worth of footage compared to a tape holding around 15 minutes worth.
Canon SLR Cameras also give you the options of both manual and automatic; having the camera using manual settings meant I could adapt hem in order to fit perfectly with the lighting. For example, during the studio shoot with the actors, the lighting was bright so, I lowered the ISO as a means to not wash out the actors. However, during the older lady shoot, I had a much darker setting and therefore needed a higher ISO to keep the footage bright. Whilst planning my music video, I decided to slow down the footage in order to fit with the pace and tempo of the song. Due to this, I had a higher shutter speed of 50fps which allowed me to then slow down the footage to 25fps and still retain the original smoothness rather than looking jumpy and unprofessional. Lastly, changing the focus settings to manual which was extremely beneficial. Although this meant I had to individually focus each shot, it allowed me to create effective focus-pulls and therefore, I, as the director, decided what I wanted in focus at certain points highlighting what the audience are supposed to look at and for certain reasons. For example, within the last scene of my music video, I created an effective depth of focus in the shot of the photograph and flowers; the photograph was in shot as this is what the most essential element in the shot at the time and what the audience must look at.
Whilst filming, different camera mounts will create different effects. Some shots I believed should be completely still and some should have some movement. For example, during the scenes between the two actors, I wanted there to be slight movement which will show different elements of the setting therefore keeping audience’s intrigued; this effect was created using a Shouldermount. In comparison to this, the shots of the older lady I felt should be completely still using a tripod. This allowed the audience to completely focus on both the woman, and the mise-en-scene of the shot. This was vital as this scene is what ties the entirety of the video together and I didn’t feel that movement would support this and instead take away from the message.
I decided to use a 50mm 1.8 Prime Aperture Lens whilst shooting as it created a more dramatic depth of field again, allowing me to turn the focus onto specific points. Moreover, I initially decided my music video would be filmed mainly using close ups and extreme close ups. Therefore, as this lens is automatically zoomed without losing image quality, I felt it would be perfect to fit my intentions. It would enabled audience’s to keep fully engaged with the piece and create relationships through the close ups with the actors as stated by Andrew Goodwin.
During the post-production stages, I used different professional softwares in order to get the best possible results. I edited the entire video using Adobe Premier Pro CS6; this software works through the use of a timeline making it extremely easy to work with both the visuals and audio at the same time. The use of a timeline creates a much easier and effective editing process; I could drop any footage onto the timeline on different layers creating a visually clear workspace. With regards to layers, I decided to create a separate layer for each shoot and then rename them to keep it clear and concis; this allowed me to clearly separate each shoot. I frequently used the trimming-tool in order to cut my footage to create certain shots. The use of single-frame advanced software enabled me to crop the footage exactly where I wanted rather than a few half-seconds out. Another tool which was beneficial for me personally was the speed tool; I slowed every section of footage down half speed in order to keep with the pace of the song as Goodwin stated that the visuals should reflect the song within all music videos.
As my video was set in the 1950s, I wanted to put in a colour overlay to desaturate the footage to give it a much more authentic, vintage look. In order to do so, I created an adjustment layer and ensured it was over the top of all of my footage excluding that of the old lady as this reflects the modern day. On this adjustment layer, I desaturated the colour to 48% meaning it was almost directly inbetween bright colour and black and white. I also applied the ‘RGB Curves’ effect and created a "smooth-S" on the master column. This decreased the brightness of all colours within the shot however, I found that the performer’s faces were still quite bright and stood out for the wrong reasons. So, I decreased the red colour column which fixed this problem.
As part of the course requires us not only to create a piece of moving image work but also print, I used Adobe Photoshop CS6 to edit the images for my DigiPak and Advertisement. Similarly to the adjustment layer made on Premiere, I desaturated the images on Photoshop to ensure the house style and vintage theme ran throughout all of my products creating a sense of synergy. The images were edging on black and white with some of the colours being shown through- for example, my magazine advert image consists of two polaroid photographs on a section of grass. After editing, the images appear black and white but you can see a slight tint of green from the grass, this cuts up the black and white and still remains within the vintage styling. Editing the images makes it look more interesting and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Lastly, I used Adobe Illustrator CS6 to create the signatures for my Digipak. These were created using the ‘paintbrush’ tool and were easily copied over into Adobe InDesign into my DigiPak.
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