Evaluation Q4

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

Research and Planning

During our whole process of research and planning, construct and evaluation we used a facebook group chat to communicate with each other and share ideas. This had many advantages as we could contact each other from anywhere at anytime with ease and no problems of us not being able to contact one and other, another big advantage to using facebook group chatting is that it allowed us to share links to webpages, work and other information that the others within the group could use, find useful or need to access. This also allowed us to socialise which on the surface seems unproductive however it allowed is to get to know each other better learning each others strengths and weaknesses meaning we would help each other further than we would if we didn't know each other like we did at the start of this process. However this could also sometimes be a disadvantage with us getting side tracked and distracted causing us to sometimes not get all the work done that we would have liked too. The second and only other disadvantage that came about from us using this social media was that it is quiet hard to convey points and have discussions as compared to in person it is rather hard, however over all it was a great advantage to use while we were producing our work. To get proof of our discussions into the blog we used screen capture to take screen shots of our conversation, this made it rather awkward to get it into my blog however it would have been the same for any other messaging service so it was compatible however it could have been easier.

Pintrest was very useful for us to find many images related to key words to do with out genre and band allowing us to research very easily into costumes and themes for our website, video and digipak. It is very easy to use with just adding any picture to your pin board and presenting it very well making it very well presented and easily understandable to everyone. One disadvantage is that text couldnt be added to the pin board itself so you would have to do that outside of it. The compatibility with the blog was brilliant as you could share it to the blog and have a small pin board appear in the post of your choice, this allowed for easy access to your pin board from the blog but also allowed you to see the it without even leaving the blog.

 I only used a poll once during in my blog however I still believe it to be a very useful tool to collect data during the research especially about my target audience, what it does very well is allows me to gather large amounts of data from a a large amount of people with varied interests and present it in a very easily understandable and professional way. One disadvantage to the poll is that it takes a large amount of time to collect accurate data as not everyone can fill out the poll at the same time so it was a waiting game to when I would receive enough data for my readings to be conclusive. Also there is nothing stoping people lying on the poll so the data could be inaccurate in that aspect however that is very unlikely, similar the facebook group chat to get the poll results from the only software I used into the blog I need to screen shot however I now know of some other pool systems that allow integration with blogger similar to the pintrest integration. 

Prezi was one of the most integral pieces of online software I used whilst doing both research and planing as well as my evaluations. It is a great way to present information that would you would put in a powerpoint as it is very similar however it adds animation and many more design options making it extremely customisable allowing me to be very creative even when presenting very dull information. Another big advantage to Prezi is that it is all online and can be accessed anywhere by yourself and anyone you share it with allowing multiple people to work on the same presentation and collect their ideas together to make the most of all of the peoples abilities, this was a great asset to the group while we all contributed our own parts to big projects as well as help each other complete there parts if someone was unable to. This made collaboration much easier than it would have been without access to each others work. I was able to integrate this into my blog with ease as it has a share function which allows me to ember it within my blog meaning people can view it without having to go to the actually prezi website however kept my work safe with no editing access available from this embed version.

Twitter I only used to gather some feedback from Jake Wynne a professional music video editor and producer. This is the main advantage of Twitter as a site as it allows everyone to connect together and share products and feedback. To integrate this into my blog I had to use the grab tool on the mac by selecting what I wanted to screen shot and then uploading it to my blog, so I was a tedious process but allows me to display my progress very well through the feed back I have received from Jake off Twitter.







Music Video

We used a cannon video camera to shoot our music video, this camera was very good quality being able to shoot in 1080p HD allowing our video to be high quality, as well as allowing us to freeze frame to grab photos if we thought they would be good for our webpage or digipak. The portability of the camera and tripod was excellent as it allowed us to take it with us out to the stables and it was to big to carry around, this allowed us to film in more further out locations which were harder to get to and to film our narrative part of our video. One small disadvantage is that we could only get access to two 8gb sd cards meaning that we were limited to the amount of footage we could film meaning that we had to film over somethings to get enough good footage for our video however this wasn't a massive problem but could have caused us more trouble. All the footage off the sd card was logged and transfered onto the video editing software final cut which was what we used to edit the footage we had filmed and music we had, this software was very smooth and easy to use when we didn't have problems with it. The multi-timeline editing meant I could view all the footage while editing it together so I could experiment with ease however whilst editing our footage we came across a large problem in which any edit we made to the video where it be a cut or change in opacity it made it so the whole file would need rendering so we could preview what we had done so a lot of the editing was done blind meaning that we edited without being able to preview it and then changing anything we had gotten wrong afterwords, this was a large inconvenience to our editing however with perseverance we managed to push through this problem and with much longer spent on editing that imagined we got a final product created. Despite the problems with the editing it came out very well especially when e adding in the colour correction in which we stripped the video of all colour and leaking the red back through, this was very easy using the effects board in final cut which after some research I realise was much simpler than any other of the type. We lowered the saturation to remove all colour and then used the chroma edit to leak the red back through, we had a little trouble with this because of the lighting in some shots and also the conditions in which we filmed outside making peoples faces red and letting that leak through too. Once rendered and Exported it was uploaded to Vimeo and then embedded into the blog allowing people to view and comment on the video from the blog without having to go to Vimeo itself.

Digipak

Using the cannon stills camera we were able to take incredibly high quality photos in all lighting conditions allowing us to take photos throughout the whole day filming. The portability just like the video camera was a big factor allowing photos in weird and hard to reach locations to be easily accessible. Once the photos were put onto the Mac we used photo shop to edit then in the same way in which we edited the video by removing the colour and adding in the red however it was much easier in photoshop due to the fact they are still pictures and we could very precisely draw around the actors to add in the red and also add in other effects such as the wooden back grounds behind them. Taking the photo and editing them to look like positives and negatives of a film reel allowed us to make our digipak look very authentic by placing them over templates we found online before placing them on our digipak. We used the these photos by uploading them to the blog which was very simple to integrate them into a post but we also uploaded them to Wix in which we used them to create the website where we had merchandise and all of the behind the scenes photos. 








Website

Wix was a very simple program to use as we could add all our own photos to it to make it seem very authentic before we added logos and flavour text very easily through the simple drag and drop system. We then added all the images from our digipak meaning that our website and digipak matched perfectly without any differences what so ever, we had multiple people from the group work together on the webpage allowing each other to add their own personal touch to the band members page about themselves adding flavour stories that would be similar to what normal bands would have on their websites. This was a rather hard thing to integrate into the blog as we could not get the website to appear on the blog making it very difficult to display easily so we had to just link out website so whoever was viewing the blog would have to leave the blog to view it which wasnt what we wanted however it was the best that could be done with the resources we had.

Final Digipak

Final Website

http://047576.wix.com/falloutfour

Final Video

Rough Cut Video Feedback

For our video we sent an email out to people within our target audience and asked them to comment on it with things they really like about it and also everything they can see we need to improve about our video.

I also asked Jake for some feedback that we could take into account.

Rough Cut Digipak Feedback

Rough Cut Website Feedback

Rough Cut Video

Rough Cut Digipak

Rough Cut Website

http://047576.wix.com/falloutfour

Merch 6

our final piece of merch for now is a rather different piece as not many bands have these in real life however we thought it fit our genre quite well so we added in a deck with the top half of the picture from the front of the digipak and the full logo on the top which i believe looks very interesting and different.

Merch 5

We have next something a little different in that we designed a tour poster to match the black hoodie we have created and this aso contains one of our different logos for the band which originally was going to be our logo until we created the better one.

Twitter Page

This is the bands twitter Page we have created alongside other social media which are useful as they fill spots in our webpage which other wise would be blank.

Facebook Page

To go side by side with our Webpage we have created a facebook page which is another way in which bands and artists interact with their fans often posting pictures and videos to the site keeping the audience up to date.

Video progress 2

I have found a way to cope with the rendering problem with the video however it is still an issue as it is affecting the quality of the editing of the video as I cannot see where i am making a cut in the video until i have made the cut and then rendered it our once more. Progressing is happening slowly and I believe the rough cut will look quite good once it is finished despite the slight errors in things such as lip syncing.

Digipak progress 2

This is our almost finished digipak rough cut. We changed the template so when we print it out it looks better and comes out right as well. We have now added the main photos and finished the front and back of the digipak. I have filled on of the spare three spaces with the lyrics of the song that me and i my group did for our music video. In the other space i have started off making it look good with the four photos in and our website logo. I am looking at making a collage behind the photos and the logo to add an effect to the digipak and give it some personality. The reason that the top three boxes are upside down is because when we print it out and put it all together they will come out the right side up.

Merch 4

Our next piece is by far our most simple as it is just a plain white T with the wax seal on, it may be simple but it is very affective and very common of real life bands merch.

Merch 3

Our third piece of merch is a marble textured pleck with the wax seal and the full logo on the other side which is a little different to our other merch as it isnt just a plain product as we felt that this looked much much better that the white counter part of this piece of merch.

Merch 2

Our next piece of merch we worked on was the phone case design which is very very simple being just our wax seal in the back of a plain white or black phone case however i think this works very well, we have created this for more than just the iphone having it cover most modern phone cases.

Merch 1

We first of all created a black hoodie design which used our wax seal logo on the chest and all of our tour dates on the back to make it look like a hoodie that belongs to an actual active band.

Digipak inspiration

We as a group very much liked this digipak as we are all big Killers fans and they fit our genre perfectly. We gained the idea of making the band one of the main focuses of the covers from this and then applied that to our own. Another big thing that drew us to this digpak was how it uses its colour plate and how it is very very similar to how we want ours to appear.

webpage inspiration

http://www.greenday.com/

We looked at some alternative rock bands and found that we liked the layout and style of Green Days website really cool so we decided to take some inspiration from this when we were creating our own as we belive if we lay ours out similar to a professional band site it will look the most realistic and that will allow us to achieve the highest grades.

Video editing progress 1

Whilst editing the rough cut for our music video I have made the conscious decision to leave out our narrative to focus on completing the performance and getting to look its best. We have used the colour correct within final cut to drain as much of the colour from the video as we possible could and still leave the red however because of the conditions in which some of the shots were filmed we do have some colour of skin and other colour seeping through into the video, however there is nothing we can do about this but reflect on how we would change the filming next time to improve the look of the product. While I have been editing this video I have had massive rendering problems making the editing process extremely difficult and time consuming which may have also caused the editing of the video to be not as good as it could be because of what we have had to do to work around this. Despite these problems The music video is coming along very nicely and is beginning to take shape.

Digipak progress 1

This is when our rough cut of our digipak started to come together and look somewhat like a proper Digipak. We used the reversed the photo of the front cover for the back as we believe this creates a very cool image which when the digipak is folded it makes it look as though it is a 360 degree view around them. we also incorporated the band webpage logo into the digipake as well to add some continuity.

Web page progression

Reflection on Shoots

The Stables

The stables was our first and longest shoot of the three that took place, once on location we were quickly able to set up and sort out how we wanted the positioning of the band to look on camera. We ran into on slight problem which was not thought of which was the temperature which affect the quality of shots as it made us more red in the face so when we tried to take all colour out of our video but red some facial complexion was still left in. Despite this we were able to work very well together and get alot of footage for the first days worth of filming allowing us more room for different shots at the next location.

The Space

In the space of filming day two we came across a problem with lighting and sound as the equipment in the space was rather complicated to use. We however did find help from a technician and he help get us up and running. This room was very good for getting different shots so we used our time to get more different shots rather than repeats of the ones from the stables.

The stables part 2

On returning to the stables we used this time to film the narative and this came much easier than expected allowing us to get multiple of each shot to make sure that we can create the best product when looking through the footage in the editing phase.

On Set/ Behind the Scenes images

 These are some of the shoots taken from behind the scenes of our main filming day in the stables. This can be used in many ways as we have been able to turn some into pictures for the webpage background and the digipak and others we are able to put into funny albums on the website to make it seem more legitimate and authenticate our production.

Narrative

Within our narrative there will be three characters, man, boy and girl. The story will portray how the man doesnt accept the boy as he is with his daughter the girl and how because of this the boy feels depressed and sad because he isnt accepted however it will be shown to be comforted by the girl before they try to get her father to accept him. The boy being different will be portrayed by the red in his outfit where as everyone else will be in black and white.

Shooting schedule

Stables

Date - 6/10/15
Filming - Narrative and Performance
Who is needed - All cast will be needed on this day

The Space

Date - 7/10
Filming - Performance
Who is needed - Just the band and all group members

Selected Field

Date - 9/10/15
Filming - Performance
Who is needed - Just the band and all group members

Group Roles

Josh - Lead singer/guitarist and will film and direct during the narrative

David - Old man in narrative and film and direct during performance

Lang - Band member and will film and direct during narrative

George - Young man in narrative and will direct and film during the performance

Eve(not part of the group) - Girl within our narative

Conor (not part of the group) - drummer in performance

Editing- everyone will get an opportunity to add to the video, digipak and website while they are being created.

Costume and Props

https://uk.pinterest.com/davids2180/media-pintrest-a2/

Story Board

This is our story board of all the types of shots that will be taken at all the different locations we have available. It depicts a drawing of the shot and then a description as at this point in production we do not have a shot by shot idea of how we are going to film our video, especially the performance aspect.