Monday 24 March 2014

Evaluation Question Four

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






Programmes used

Adobe After Effects - 

This programme is the very first programme I started to use in the post production of my music video. It consisted of using the footage I had filmed and choosing specific shots which myself and my partner decided to mask. Masking is the process where the same person can be incorporated into one shot. As I was playing four characters and wanting the mask three (the nerd, the slut and the nature girl) masking became a important aspect to my music video project as a whole. Masking is essentially covering up something with something else in terms of my music video it consisted of me filming each character in the same area however ensuring there is a certain amount of space between each character to ensure that I can mask each character together. I also had to film a background footage in order to place the characters onto the background footage. I have never come across Adobe After Effects before which meant I was completely unaware of the way masking was done as well as the simple functions of the programme. This therefore meant I had to come to terms with the basics of the programme before attempting to mask my footage. When I familiarised myself with the programme more I then had to import the footage I wanted to use and place them in order of how I wanted them to be masked. The background footage would go behind the placed footage I chose of myself in all three characters - the remaining clips would be placed underneath in the order of sequence I wanted them to be in. I then had to draw a mask around the selected selection of the footage/clip that I wanted to use in the mask. This would then appear in another layer in that shot. My masking was of myself - I masked myself from one shot, into another shot and then repeated this process with the third character. This masking resulted in there being three of me in one piece of footage. The process of masking was then continued for the other chosen shots that myself and my partner selected. The process of masking was extremely frustrating as little things could jeopardise the entire scene - things such as jolted camera movement, blur or most frustrating of all was the lighting! As we filmed our entire music video outside it was difficult to be able to control the lighting for each shot/footage taken. Therefore we had to be quick and continuous in filming - even when filming a shot straight after another the difference in lighting became noticeable when trying to mask shots together which therefore meant we had to discard some shots. Motion shots were the most time consuming in terms of masking as I had to move myself in the shot frame by frame and at the same time make sure the masking frame surrounded it. Masking was the ultimate time consuming edit I had done in my entire project as it consisted of much concentration and determination - myself and my partner encountered 5+ hours of masking for only a 3-5 second shot. Although it had been a frustrating editing process it is clear to admit that I enjoyed using this programme extremely as I am now able to use this programme in the future due to incorporating it into my music video project for A2 Media Studies whereas I would have not had a clue how to use it if I did not rise to the challenge. Adobe After Effects resulted in amazing outcomes for the masking which I could simply place onto my timeline in Premiere Pro CC when editing my music video together.



Here are some screenshots of my process in masking on Adobe After Effects. 















Adobe Premiere Pro CC - 


To edit my music video I used the programme Adobe Premiere Pro CC. In class we have the opportunity to use Final Cut Express, however as I own a Macbook Pro I felt it was more convenient to complete the editing at home. I decided to use a different programme to my fellow classmates. The reasons for this was because I felt that Adobe Premiere Pro CC was much easier to comprehend as well as operate which therefore meant I could work progressively. Also Adobe Premiere Pro CC is very similar to Final Cut Express which I am able to operate to. Adobe Premiere Pro CC gave me a opportunity to explore and experiment with the different ways of using it, I had never been taught how to use Adobe Premiere which set a challenge for myself which I enjoyed facing. Without using tutorials of any sort I spent time learning the key aspects in using Adobe Premiere Pro before operating it. My only trouble when editing was cutting to the beat, although this programme is much like Final Cut Express which I used for last years editing, I had not ever cut to the beat before. Also as my chosen song was The Proclaimers - 500 Miles I had a very complicated beat which I found very difficult to find when listening to the song. However after listening to the song continuously I eventually came to terms with the beat and was able to attempt it. Importing my footage to the timeline was the easiest part to this process as it just consisted of placing each footage/clip on to the sequence and I was able to pick and choose where I wanted to place it. As part of my music video project lip sync was the hardest of them all as in my music video the artist 'Bryce Duncan' was played by our friend Tom. Lip sync came off as a difficulty because Tom was not familiar with the song which meant that we had to ensure Tom became familiar with the song in order for us to lip sync. However despite attempting to learn the song Tom did find difficulty in singing the words in the correct rhythm and timing as the song itself. This therefore made it extremely hard to lip sync with the song when editing as the lyrics had to match the visuals when Tom was singing in the footage. It was easier to match my lip sync with the base track of the song as I was familiar with it. Nonetheless I overcame this and decided to add effects and transitions to make the music video more effective. For certain shots I slowed them down or made them speed up in appropriate places of the song as this added to the humour of my 'gag' video. I also used the reversed tool to some shots, such as the shots of the cows as this also added to the humour. Another tool which I used was the colour correction tool - this enabled me to make my music video a consistent colour which  added to the 'gag' video theme. I chose to incorporate green in my colour correction to continue the reoccurring theme of green which has been used in both my digipak and magazine advert. Adobe Premiere Pro CC allowed me to cut, place and edit my footage effectively and allowed me to master yet another programme in Media Studies. The overall process of editing was highly enjoyable although at times it became frustrating and time consuming it was ultimately an amazing experience to be able to construct and create my own music video using my own ideas and creativity.


Below are screenshots of my process when editing on Adobe Premiere Pro CC:










 Photoshop - 

I used the programme photoshop when completely my digipak and magazine advert. I have however used Photoshop in secondary school and therefore had some knowledge on how to use some aspects of it. However it took me awhile to get to grips with the programme again, once doing so I then progressed on creating my digipak. Using YouTube I was able to find a tutorial on 'colour splash' this enable me to make the focus on a colour and the rest of the image black and white. Using this tutorial helped me incredibly as I was able to progressively do this to each image I wanted to use for my digipak. Video tutorials allowed me to learn how to use certain objects, move/write text and to edit images in terms of colour/brightness/contrast. I was able to create both my digipak and magazine advert at my own desired pace which resulted in making my digipak and magazine advert to the standard I wanted them to be. Experimenting with different colours and fonts I was able to choose what suited my music videos overall theme, also from observing other digipak's completed by students as well as real digipaks that artists have sold, I was able to construct a clear idea of what I wanted in my mind before progressing it on Photoshop. Photoshop did not require as much time as my other editing programmes which enlightened me as I was eventually able to complete both my digipak and magazine advert successfully.

Here are some screenshots of when I was using Photoshop: 
















No comments:

Post a Comment