RESEARCH/PLANNING
Believe it or not, the internet was what we used for our research. Once Aiden told us that his uncle was Roni Size and how we would most likely be able to use a song of his, we each looked through his songs on YouTube and on his Myspace.
Sure enough, Aiden used his mobile phone to make a call to his uncle who said there was no problem using a song of his. If he had, for some reason, not allowed us, we would have obviously searched for unsigned artists/groups through internet and word of mouth. Thankfully, we never had to deal with spending time finding someone as we already did straight away.
Roni Size's myspace page had only a few songs, and it was on there that we first heard the song 'No More' which we found appealing because of its slower tempo, melody, and lyrics. We also used google to search the lyrics so we could print them out for studying them when it came to coming up with ideas for the video, and so we could give them to any actors we may need to learn lines. We also used Youtube to watch some Roni Size music videos to see if there was any influence we could gain from them. We also looked through his website and his page on wikipedia for research on the artist.
Obviously, we used this website Blogger to write up our process, as well as to follow each other's separate research and analyses. Once we had drawn our storyboards and written our shooting schedules, we used a scanner (as seen below) to scan them onto the computer so we could insert them onto our blogs.
Finally, we used the online delivery website Amazon to order the four masks for the actors to wear.
CONSTRUCTION
We used digital camcorders (mostly my own, but we used one of the school's alongside mine during the filming of Julia) so that we could actually film anything. The only problems we had with the digital camera was that the battery ran out during the start of our filming of the cigarrete-jabbing scene, but this was quickly resolved by exchanging our battery with a fully charged one from the media department. Having had plenty of previous experience, we were at complete ease with filming hand-held. The only time we used a tripod was during filming Julia, when we had one camera placed on a tripod directly in front of her for a completely steady mid-shot; we ended up only inserting about five seconds of this shot into our music video. The rest was hand-held because not only was it easier to film some sequences this way, but also because any unsteady shakes we had went well with the song's tempo. The LCD screen is also very useful as we can see what we are filming without having to put our eyes right up into the lenses (as one would whilst using older cameras) which could affect our camera movement.
This is exactly how our cameras
looked except that the colour was a
lot darker and we didn't have this kid
on our LCD screen.
Of course we needed some tapes so that we could record anything, of which we used two.
To take pictures of our filming, filming locations, and any images we needed for our cd inserts, I used the camera on my mobile phone which was good enough quality. When it came to editing, we used the programme iMovie, on which we cut clips and put footage in order, as well as choosing transition and lighting effects. The most common feature we used was they key 'Apple + T' to cut footage. This programme was on the iMacs.
For the creation of our CD sleeves and advert, we used Adobe Photoshop to create the right visuals. Firstly, we created a new project and then unlocked the image. Once our images were on the programme, we changed the colour to black-and-white and used the 'Dark Strokes' effect for the inserts of the two masked characters. We then placed the slogan in red lettering. For the other two inserts, we made sure they were both in black-and-white and used the same red lettering for slogans and fictional credits. The album cover was done by fading in an image of the mask over a picture of a landscape, also having the colour in black-and-white. We used the red lettering for the titles, track list, and brief info. For the magazine advert, we used the exact same image of our insert with one of the masked character and zoomed it in so that he is in much more close-up. Then we just wrote all the texts again in red lettering and in different fonts. I have always found the programme quite confusing and though I could use the tools, I still had to remind myself exactly where was what and which tools had what effect. My post about the work we did that day explains better.
For the editing that we used to add effects unavailable on iMovie, we used a few programmes. Photoshop and AferEffects enabled CGI effects to be added - this was needed for the blood and for making the cigarette look alight, as well as for creating the more cinematic-style colour in our video which was made through trying out different colours and contrasts.
The programme AfterEffects was also crucial so Ali could overlay Julia onto the narrative scenes, and to write a formula which enabled the visuals to zoom in and out and shake around thus matching our audio.
A video converter programme was used to change the file's format on AfterEffects so that it could be uploaded back onto the iMacs as they had different outputs. Also, so that we could transfer the files we used usb memory sticks. We also used this memory stick to transfer the actual song so that we could import it onto iMovie.
Facebook and MSN were used for each group member to contact each other regarding filming days and editing processes. Oh and of course, we used this website Blogger to write up our process!
EVALUATION
We did not use many media technologies for this stage in comparison to the other two. Obviously we continued to use Blogger to write our evaluations..for our audience feedback, we decided we would just use the video cameras on our phones rather than to prepare the camera and find a firewire to upload them and all that business; instead we quickly used USB cables to upload them onto our computers. I also used my phone to take a picture of the sample questionnaire as scanners were unavailable. This method was much more simple. We used Quicktime Player as we had to convert our original music video into this format so that we could upload it onto Facebook and onto a DVD for burning, as were unable to do so straight from the iMovie programme.
Speaking of which, we used a DVD for burning our music video onto it so that it can be sent off. We briefly used the internet to reinforce our previous research on drum and bass' conventions, but that is all.
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