Evaluation Question 4

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


Research and Planning
In order to gain a better perspective with what our target audience are likely to watch in terms of the Drum and bass/ Dance or Dubstep genre we began researching current music videos on the website 'You tube' being as you tube is such a popular site there are thousands of music videos available to watch. A video we researched was Chase and Status featuring Tempa T- Hypest Hype, the video began backstage just before the three go out to perform, as the tempo increases it flicks forward to the performance where there are hundreds of people partying at a gig/ club. There were a lot of shots of the performers and people in the crowd having fun dancing and chanting along with the lyrics. This research along with other videos such as Calvin Harris featuring Tinie Tempah- Drinking From The Bottle also focusses on the stars, especially on the image of the star and how they seem to remain 'cool'. I also noticed how most of the women in these music videos of the specific genres seem to be sexualised a lot, often there are around 2- 18 women surrounding the one male performer (also adds to the star image). From this research we were able to list the general conventions of a dance/ dubstep music video:

• Dance routines (often females)
• Often close ups or slow motion effects on the women's dancing body
• Strong, bright and powerful lights that are more often than a mix of colours
• Often a lot of camera work, tend to be close ups of the performers and the dancers, pans and low angles of the performers (star image)
• Often a lot of performance as well as narrative, on the odd occasion some videos would have abnormal concepts that didn't relate to the song in any way

Hundreds of people chanting and dancing along to the performance

Women surrounding the male performer

YouTube, a video sharing website in which users can upload , view and share  videos

Stopmotion Video- Wolf and the Pig
This video is ultimately what made us choose too create a stopmotion music video after our incident with our other partner in the group. It truly inspired us to create a video with some of the same features. The video flowed really well and was unbelievably simple and cheap to create because all you needed was the photos, the background and a means to capture the frames. Thanks to this video we decided to plan on creating elements of our video to 'come alive' just as the creator of the video above had, such as by making the photo float on top of the water as if the wolf was swimming and turning the photo of the pig round to find another photo of the back of the pig. We linked this with our video by having our hands in the shot at points, by making the actor swim towards the camera, and for the camera itself to move and adjust to different positions.

Example of how original a stopmotiion video can be

Lastly I had done research on stars and their star image. In order  to keep fans and potential customers a star must always be aware of their image and how they can improve or keep it consistent to ensure fans stay loyal and happy. I researched my star image on Calvin Harris and Professor Green, Professor Green is more of a rap artist and Harris is a song writer and creates his own music like JaeSwift. I chose Professor Green because when I was researching JaeSwift it stated that he is a song writer as well as a rapper. People who have  bought his album will know of this and so JaeSwift being the two I thought I ought to research both genres.
I noticed that Calvin Harris as well as other music creators seem to wear fashionable and popular clothing that their target audience find pleasing as often trends are started with these stars as people are inspired and spire to be like them. I also noticed that a lot of music producers excluding Chase and Status all seem to wear wacky and strange clothes which I think portrays them as being unique and a sign of their creativity and eye for fashion.

Seen to be wearing reletivley normal clothes in one of his music videos from youtube.
This bomber jacket is often seen on the younger generation from 16 onwards.

This is an image from his album front cover I found on Google, as you can see he is
wearing some strange yet interesting glasses that are unique and rarely seen.

Construction
The first piece of technology we were originally going to use for our music video was the green screen, we would set up these poles that joined together and slide the green screen through and begin filming the girl in front of the screen. This was until we found the video quite dull due to the same close ups and we found ourselves at a dead end because of the lack of things we could do. Before we scrapped the idea we had some good effects that made the green screen completely white in the video with only the girl lip syncing at the front.

Our second attempt went much better, we used the 'apple Mac book  to use the iStopmotion technology, it allows the user to create stop motion animation or time lapse movies. Stopmotion is a technique of creating animation by taking single pictures of objects. In our case we had cut out around 200+ pictures of Ben to use as a part of our stopmotion video. The technology was helpful because it allowed Ben and I to see an overlay  of the last frame that was taken, this means we could align the image perfectly beside the previous overlay if we wanted the actor to be walking. This live video overlay allowed me to use a slider og how much of the previous overlay I wanted to be visible which is great for aligning the next shot.

We did have a few problems however with iStopmotion, it was the first time I had ever used and come across stopmotion and only the second time Ben had ever used the technology. There seemed to be a few minor problems but the most annoying was that we couldn't seem to add our music onto the stopmotion. This could have been fatal because we needed to add a few lyrics into the video, as well as a scene of Ben being overwhelmed by the tidal wave as the lyrics say 'Pull me under'. Hence we needed to have the music play in time with the video.
A second problem was that we couldn't always save our work because of an 'unknown error' that occurred  In the end when we managed to get to our latest version of the video we quickly exported the video via a USB stick and imported it into 'Final Cut Pro' which is mentioned below.
Lastly, a more of an annoying problem we had was that often the camera would need to be refocussed because after the frame was captured the image and background would be blurry. To get around this we just pressed the focus button after each capture to ensure the quality of the stopmotion was at its best.

Here is the iStopmotion interface, it includes play, rewind, fast forward and record for video playback preferences.
There is a timeline at the bottom where the number of frames can be seen and replaced or deleted if need be.
The right panel is wear adjustments can be made on picture quality, number of frames per capture as well as the camera being used.

iStopmotion ready to use alongside the Mac Book and the small tilted camera in the stopmotion set

It was suggested by the audience to 'add some live footage to explain why the stopmotion is happening'. This was a great piece of feedback, we needed the duration of the video to be longer anyway and so we filmed real live action footage from one of the video cameras hired out from the college. This gave a bit more of a narrative to the story as well as more camera work like close ups, pan and over the shoulder shots.
As well as this we used a hired out camera to take 200+ images of Ben, the actor which was then roughly cut to add to the simple and childlike portrayal. We wanted the stopmotion ot be obvious to the viewers hence the rough cut images and transitions of the backgrounds. Which again the forest and both beach backgrounds were taken from a camera outside of college.

The final and most important technology we used was Final Cut Pro, this technology is popular at Suffolk ONE, it is relatively easy to use and can create some amazing professional videos. We had to export the video from iStopmotion because at the time there was many saving problems with the iStopmotion due to an unknown error. Once we had reached our latest version of the stopmotion video then I exported it via a USB stick into Final Cut Pro. This software is a video editing software developed by 'Apple inc' it provides users with non destructive methods of editing videos on a professional basis. We mainly used the software to add live action footage to the stopmotion and to add the song in the timeline. Through the tech. we managed to make the video and song in sync with each other which was important in order for our lyrics to the match the song. Another feature we used was the effects and cropping tools, If the shot was too long in our live action footage, such as when the teacher was telling off the students then a crop can be made, we shortened that scene by 4 seconds which would have been far too long for a shot. As well as this the live action footage at the beginning and end of the video was altered, the music doesn't start in the first few scenes so sound is critical in those first scenes, we managed to remove most of the humming and background noises by decreasing or completely removing the decibelles (db) of those shots. Lastly, effects like fade in and fade out were used in both the footage and song. the song lasted around 4 minutes which was too long for a video so we managed to cut the song to approximately 2:30 and then added a fade out effect to ensure the song ended professionally rather than a simple cut from music to silence. The same happened with the video, a fade out was used in the footage before the stopmotion t show that time has passed and that the actor was dreaming.


Evaluation

For question 2 I have created a Prezi presentaton, it is much like the 'Microsoft Powerpoint' software yet seems to have better transitions and templates. It looks extremely professional and can be edited by adding or editing font and text, adding images, and altering the prezi transition paths. It was the first time I had used Prezi and I was amazed at how creative you can be, the templates are good for a variety of presentations, I remeber choosing the template that has a stick figure with three thought bubbles where text could be added. I also saw 3-D templates that followed a trees lifecycle which could be used when presenting  or developing initial ideas. The possibilities are endless.

We hired out a camera in order to film our 3rd evaluation question on the audience feedback. This allowed the question to be much more personal as we are face to face with the camera. We managed to take different scenes for each of the points made. which was then cut and edited via Final Cut Pro and then joined together. If we had more time and thought about the possibilities with the question more then we could have taken time to get some of the audience that gave feedback to be in the video where they could quote what they had written and we could have interviewed them further developing how we could or have taken their feedback.
Lastly, question 1 was completed through audio. We discussed the question and recorded what we were talking about on a Dictaphone  The audio was imported onto final cut pro and then put on top of the music video. This way we were able to state what was happening in the video at the time and how we have challenged or followed conventions on typical videos of a similar genre as the video is playing in the background.


Technology has aided in decision making because when we were researching the use of stopmotion pictures we came across the wolf and pig video, we were so amazed about the creativity and how it was created that we decided on using some of the features like how the wolf and pig are often 'brought to life' using real objects. For example the pig is seen running towards the camera and then when the camera rotates the back of the pig is seen, still running. We were inspired by this to create a stopmotion picture and make it more unique by making the actor swim towards the camera or use the background differently, such as when Ben is being picked up the camera tilts with it and then focusses on the back of the stopmotion set.
With iStopmotion we were then capable of creating much more imaginative and fantasy styled video, an example is that the actor Ben is swept away by a giant tidal wave that takes him underwater, he is then chased by two animated fish that swim after him. Ben manages to escape after latching onto a fishing hook. Whereas in a live action video this would not be possible to even consider which is why I believe our music video is much more creative than it originally would have been.

Evaluation question 3

Evaluation question 3- What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation question 2- (Prezi)

Evaluation question 1

Evaluation question 1 (AUDIO)

Completed Music video- Drowning

Here is the link to the music video we have uploaded onto youtube, please like and comment any useful criticism. Thankyou.
A2 Media Music Video- JaeSwift, Drowning

Use of Final Cut Pro

After we finally managed to export the video from iStopmotion it was time to film the beginning and end of our music video through live footage. We hired out a camera and a tripod and began filming for the part before the stopmotion video. We included why the stopmotion begins and that Ben is dreaming because of  everyday stresses like college work.
Once all the filming was finished we imported the stopmotion video and the footage onto Final Cut Pro, with this technology it was made possible to add each clip into the correct sequence. Once the video was in order and inter-joined then I imported the music file onto the software, adding the song to the sound video and then decreasing or completely removing the decibels in other scenes such as the humming in some of the live action footage, this is to ensure that the song can be heard and there are no background noises or interruptions. We used the software to make some adjustments like cutting some clips down, this was because the clips were mainly too long to keep in the final version of the video, an example was when Ben throws the paper ball in the bin, the clip was far too long to keep so we cut it down by around 8 seconds. Last of all Final Cut Pro allows a variety of transitions and effects to be added to the video and song, by adding a fade in and fade out to the live footage just before the stopmotion video begins then the fade seems to portray that time has passed or that Ben is dreaming. We did the same at the end of our video to to show the video ending, we also did the same with the song, as the original song was over 4 minutes long we decided to cut the file down to approximately 2:30 minutes, to ensure the song sounds like it ends correctly we added a fade out effect which after a few seconds dies down to nothing, this shows the song has also ended.

An image of the timeline, as you can see the fade in effect begins as the stopmotion begins making the previous footage seem as though it was in the past.

This is Final Cut Pro, To the left is where the clips and music file is placed, underneath is the timeline where clips can be dragged on or off, noise can be muted or placed over the top of each by dragging the clip above or below the current clip.

Editing and Stop Motion

For the last few weeks I have been focussing on using the cut out pictures and framing them using 'iStop Motion' an application for 'Apple' that once clicked the camera that is attached will take frames of what is in view. With this application we can create a stop motion video that will obviously show the person as being still images. With stop motion pictures it means that things that normally cannot be done can now be used, we can be much more creative such as underwater scenes including jellyfish and clown-fish. we can also use different transitions and 'stunts' such as Ben the actor being swept away by a tidal wave, being plunged down into the deep sea and then being saved by a lone fishing hook waiting for a catch. We have been able to film about 1 minute and 30 seconds of the video and with some lyrics on screen it should be just about finished  The font for our lyrics will be from a website called 'Da Font' named 'Avengers'. It is a bold contemporary font that is a part of dance/ drum n bass codes and conventions.

Below is just some of the work we have been doing these past few weeks,

This is the layout we are using it involves an Apple Mac with the iStop Motion software and camera, two lights on either side and a mini 'stage' like area where we can add and move different images or slide in new backgrounds.

This is the software we are using to piece together frames, we click the red button to capture a still image, we can then move the image slightly or add another to simulate Ben the person moving of carrying out an action

 This is the current setting we have the softwre on using the camera 'iSight' which is connected to the mac book.

 This is the bottom of the software layout, it takes count of how many frames there are and the total duration, we can select existing frames like so and replace, edit or delete them if required.

The third font, names Avengeance Heroicc Avenger is the font that we shall be using in our video as it is a new flashy and modern font that is relatable with many other dance/ dubstep videos.

Storyboard

Steady Progression

Last week Ben and I was able to get a lot more still images, we now have around 200 images including some of Ben's acting underwater, more walking poses and a pan of Ben. This way we can now use and reuse some of the poses like him walking and swimming underwater.
This week Ben and I were able to print off a hefty amount of images which seemed to take forever due to the data size being sent to the printer. Eventually we were able to begin cutting around the images of Ben, we ensured that when we cut around him we didn't cut it to lean/ close to the character instead we left a small space. I did this because it gives an impression to the audience of a childish, playful and quite simple appearance, It also makes it quite obvious that this is a stop motion picture which is the effect that we want to apply to the audience. Next week we will finish cutting out the images and then we can begin setting up oour backgrounds and apply the images to the background to create a journey.

Planning and shots

Today Ben and I began shooting, I have taken numerous images of Ben in many different poses and interactions. We have taken well over 70 images ranging from him walking with the camera panning his moves, Ben being swept away by a wave and Ben sitting down at the edge of a pier. Next lesson we will be taking more images with more shot variety, we need to add a narrative to the song as well, I came up with an idea of Ben/ the character walking through many different scenes such as a town centre, a forest and finally to a pier where a massive wave sweeps him off his feet and drags him underwater. This is where we can add a few edits to make it look like bubbles are coming out of his mouth and fish swim around him, he may swim through a few scenes and finally he may die or he may emotionally/ physically die.

As far as how unique our stop motion video will be I want to add lots of creative ideas such as an image of Ben with his back facing the camera, then on the other side of the printed image will be the front of Ben, so when the camera rotates around him it will look like a complete 360 degrees.
Another idea I had was having a wave crash into ben made of blue, grey and white string, this way we can tug on the string to make it look as if its constantly moving and thrashing around.