The Products

The final video:

The final website link:

http://franchiwebb.wix.com/almosthandsome

The final digipak:

Evaluation Task 2

Evaluation Task 1

Here is presentation for my evaluation task 1 which asks:

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

Evaluation Task 3

Evaluation Task 4

Question:  How Did You Use Media Technologies In The Construction, Research, Planning and Evaluation Stages?

Within the construction of our Music promo Video, Website and Digipak we used many media technologies to create an interesting and gripping promotion package suited to our target audience.

Website:

Wix:
When Researching for our website we visited various other artists sites, such a Lorde and London grammar. The internet in general was incredibly useful for finding out things and researching similar pictures and shots for our photo-shoots, which images we used as backgrounds on our website pages.

To Create the website we used a certain system on a website called Wix, which allowed us to make a website where they gave us a brief plain template and allowed us to edit and change the site as we wanted using simple technology which anybody could use.

This is our simple template beginning before editing:

We had to find an appropriate background for which we chose a selection of images of the band from their Facebook and Twitter. To set the background we had to go through a series of stages in the icon box.

The icons are on the left hand side of the page and we clicked on the..

•  design icon 
• then background
•  then customise background

...this allowed us to choose our own picture as a background which then looked like this ( the same background for every page):

We played around with various fonts which were within the program, these are two of the fonts we considered for the title..

To change the font you could double click on the the text and this box would pop up:

If you then clicked on the down arrow next to the box with a font name in (DIN Next Light), it would give you a choice of other fonts to change the text to:

Here are two of the fonts we considered:

After holding a focus group, we discovered that the image on the website gave the impression of the wrong genre and didn't link the website well with the other products as it was the only one in colour. Therefore we decided to use some pictures from the digipak photo shoot to create a background from the website and make it all in black and white. 

Media technologies used to create the Digipak:

Camera:

For the digipak (and the website) we took some still shots of the band members to use as background images and also for the band's gallery to add to what they already had. We wanted this to look professional and be a clear background therefore we used a Nikon D700.This was helpful as it has a screen on the back allowing you to view the picture straight after it has been taken, this is time effective as you can know straight away when you have the shot/s you want you use, in the same way you can see if you need to carry on with the photo shoot if you haven't got a good picture yet, saving you from having to do another shoot.

Light Room:

One of the technologies we used was called lightroom, which is an editing software we used alongside photoshop. The first thing we did was choose which were our favourite photos from the shoots, to group them together we rated them using a star system to narrow down our favourites:

Photoshop:

Photoshop was incredibly helpful when matching up the website to the style of the music video, it allowed us to put on an effect that made the images into black and white. We were also able to whiten the background to make the pictures more gleaming and eye catching because of the strong contrast.

To edit the background photo we had to first whiten the background. To separate the background from the people, to do this we had to use the lasso tool, which puts a protective barrier around things you want to stay the same while you change other things:

Media technologies used to create the Music Video:

Prezi:
When first coming up with concepts for the video we had two main ideas this was so we could see which one our target audience preferred and choose according to that. To make our presentation interesting and engaging we used a technology called Prezi, which is like a more exciting version and more presentation options than power point. These are the two Prezi's that we presented to our Peers.







Using these Prezi's was incredibly helpful for research, as it helped our audience give more specific feed back as to what changes we could make and which one they preferred, as Prezi makes the video concepts much clearer. For instance their preferred concept was WBT, they suggested finding a location for WBT's video, and find another interesting strand to put in it to create more shots. However they didn't like the boy band idea as they felt it was for a younger audience and that it was too cliche.All this information couldn't have been given to us if we hadn't used such a clear presentation technology as Prezi.

Message/Imessage and Iphone Camera:
Before filming and photo-shoots we exchanged messages between the band on phone messages and imessage. This enabled us to be organised and prepared, and also get to know the band a bit and also to inform the band of what to expect for filming and shoots, this meant that they were slightly less on edge and more relaxed and therefore better on camera. We also exchanged messages between our group, this helped us to stay informed about how we're coming along, allowing to work faster and therefore have more time to experiment and discover new ideas.

Here are some old messages between us:

Iphone Camera and Imovie:
A further Technology from our phones was the use of its camera, we used it to film our animatic, and edited it with imovie, on a laptop. This was incredibly helpful as it meant we could view a rough version of what our video was currently looking like, and allow us to make important changes. For example, it showed us that we currently didn't have enough strands and shots within the video and that the editing pace was to quick for the slow song. Therefore making an animatic stops this from happening in our actual video, and was therefore these two technologies were of incredible importance.


Filming Technologies:
On shooting day we used specific cameras and lens that suited the style of filming that we were doing. We used a Sony FS100 with a prime lens, which is a fixed lens that can't zoom, meaning it is very specific and perfect for filming music videos.





We also used an 80mm lens for the close ups, this is because it gives a more natural perspective, with no distortion like it would have on a wide lens. It also gives a narrower depth of field which softens the lines on the face which can make bad skin less noticeable, along with soft lighting.

Other technologies we used on the day were a crane and tracking equipment. We used a crane when filming above shots so we could go from up and down from above the singer. This is one of the shots where we had to use a crane...

Tracking requires a certain amount of equipment, and allows you to move smoothly around something, meaning that you can create an interesting moving shot. Tracking also suits the style of the song, especially with a slow track, it creates a calm and mystical feel to the video. Here is the tracking equipment.

As you can see above there is a wire on the ground which sets the track which the camera will go along and the machine with wheels which the camera is attached to and a seat for the camera man to sit on whilst filming, while someone pulls him along the track.

This is a clip where we filmed using tracking..

As you can see above, the clip is ever so slightly moving round to the right creating this mystical feel we want.

Cutting:
Cutting the track is essentially what editing is for, and what makes the shots into a music video. To cut a shot you simply drag an end into the part where you want the shot to start and the same but dragging from the end when you want it to finish. It is important to cut on the beat as this is satisfying for audiences and means the shots match the song and move with it. It is also important to match up the songs speed with the length of the shots, again to match the style of the song.

Opacity:

A media technology I used frequently within the post production editing process, was the use of opacity. I used this to move smoothly from one shot to another, fading through. This was to match the dreamy soft calm feel of the song.

 Here is a picture chart to demonstrate how the opacity tool can be used.

And here are some sections in our video where the work with the tool can be seen clearly.

As you can see above, apart from smoothly fading from one shot to another, it also enables you to see two shots layered over the top. If you make the top shot have a lower opacity you can see the one placed underneath, and therefore two at the same time, demonstrated in the clip above.

Here isa clip demonstrating how to play with the opacity:

Recording with a fast track:

Before filming we altered the track to double speed and used it for the filming. Ensuring that our artists had become accustomed to lip syncing with the new speed, this was the song we played in the background on shoot day. This meant that when we sped up the track to normal pace and matched up the lip syncing to the words in the song, it gave the  shots an airy, slow motion feel, As if a movement effect had been used. We did this because it fitted to the track which is calm and airy also. 

Software:
The soft ware we used when editing the music video was adobe premier, which is a professional editing software, which allows you to play around with things like black and white, contrast, slow-motion etc. This allowed the editing process to be interesting and informative, Premier had most things you were looking to do, it was just a case of finding the tool within the program and then how to use it. All this helped make the Promo video varied and suited to our target audience (our piers).

An example of one of the things is the use of black and white, here is a video demonstrating how to use the black and white option.

Base Track:

Something that can also be seen in the clips above is the Base track. This is a clear and best possible sound quality of the song, which timing you have to match up with the shots so the lip sync is in time with the words. To do this you have to find a specific time shown on the clapper board and match it with the same time in the song, as it is the base track that is played over the top when filming, then you simply drag and drop to that place, this made the editing process very time effective, as we didnt have to match up with the music every shot we wanted to use.

Rehearsals

Phoebe Palmer's Blog: Tertia and Will:

 This is a link to the rehearsal video, we used a microphone and guitar and amp so they could practice realistically. As you can see we attempted to do a moving shot but it is a bit shaky with the phone camera. hopefully this helped them get used to the idea of being filmed so hopefully they can be more comfortable in front of the camera, and around us.

Further Website Work

Today me a liv spent a long time on photoshop trying to find a way to get the white background, surrounding the T-shirts on the merchandise page, to disappear to give it a more professional look and to make sure all the attention is on the merchandise products.

To get rid of the white background we attempted using the Magic wand tool however it proved too difficult for us. We then realised we could use the eraser tool to erase the correct bit. This took a really long time and we had to zoom in and use a very small eraser size to make this possible.

which looked like this...

Here I am very carefully going round the edge of the t-shirt with a very small sized eraser tool which is just about visible in this picture in the bottom left hand corner, after this I went round with a larger one getting rid of the rest of the white background. (The checkered grey and white is the deleted bit.)