Eughan's A2 Media Blog

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

Digital Media – Research, Planning and Evaluation

The use of various online sites has proved beneficial during the research, planning and evaluation stages of my project. I used a blog on blogger in order to keep a chronological record of my project, which helped with accessing creative decisions and thoughts I’d made prior in the project – as seen by my referencing to previous posts, especially the experimental video clips. A slight issue with the site is how difficult it is to place images side-by-side on the posts; this issue was easily overcome through using Microsoft Paint to edit images together and otherwise avoid posts looking bear or irregular in their format, however it was still a slight hassle which otherwise slowed the efficiency of my project. The site was great in allowing instant feedback and response, specifically from my supervisor, with much of the feedback presented on the blog relating to the technical aspects of my project and how to improve them. There were some limitations to the blog, perhaps the lack of attention from friends and fans of my client as typically young people – who make up the majority of the demographic for Elsewhere Head – do not access sites such as blogger in their spare time.

Facebook is a more accessible means of attaining feedback which is why I often sought the use of the social media site, namely for contacting my client and sharing ideas and products quickly and easily. This mainly occurred within the use of the Messenger portion of the site, however, I could have perhaps created an online group or page to upload updates and content – the popularity of Facebook increasing the chances of feedback to better improve my products. Regardless, the use of Messenger was certainly positive in enabling me to maintain better contact with my client, as to suggest ideas for the products and organise the shooting of the music video. However, there is a limit on the size of the files that can be shared on this site which meant I was unable to share videos and certain content, blogger had the same issue and that Microsoft’s PowerPoint and Word files were not upload-friendly, which meant I had to use various uploading sites.

Utilising different sharing sites, such as slideshare, scribd and Vimeo allowed for me to better use the other online sites in order to gain feedback and help record my plans. Each site was rather useful and there was no issue in uploading to slideshare and scribd, however Vimeo was definitely restrictive in this aspect. A free Vimeo account had a weekly upload amount given to my user and so I could not upload videos in some cases. This was particularly evident with videos such as the long experimental video with real life footage and the video including the four songs my client initially gave me – the songs video had amounted to around 13 minutes. In order to overcome this, I had to upload to YouTube despite it having a longer upload time. This was not a major issue but again it certainly halted my progress on some occasions when I wanted to upload content quickly, struggling to transfer some videos to my home computer since uploading in school would not be viable due to some upload times of two hours or more. After uploading, I was able to then offer my own interpretation and evaluation of the quality of my products by assessing their effectiveness and potential areas for improvement – as to ensure the products are relevant and work well in relation to one another.

Software – Production

In terms of editing, I used Adobe Premiere Pro whereas in my foundation portfolio I had initially used Microsoft Movie Maker. Premiere had a lot to offer in terms of the range of effects, transitions and so on; developing my skills from my foundation project, I felt more comfortable in navigating the software and was able to edit and cut effectively. The use of visual effects such as Fast Color Corrector, Balance Gain and Saturation meant I was able to easily produce a range of colour in my music video – as seen in the sections which change colour on the beat. In fact, the ability to zoom in on clips allowed for easier cutting of footage and helped me create stop motion effects with images by looking at key frames and editing on a frame-by-frame basis.

One particular issue I found with using Premiere was the incompatibility issues I came across during the editing process throughout my project. I had a more updated version at home and therefore could not transfer project work from home and school, meaning some videos would have to be edited entirely in school or solely at home. This restricted my ability to focus on specific work and made editing rather inefficient as I would often lose focus or remember what each video needed – seeing as I could not finish it in one or two editorial sessions. I decided to simply isolate certain projects as a result however the software has been extremely useful aside from that.

Even in my foundation project I used Adobe Flash, already having experience in the use of such software through personal use and animation within my Extended Project. I used it again in order to create a small experimental animation, the video depicting a classmate vomiting vibrant pink liquid as a floating head in order to fit the psychedelic genre. The ability to upload images to Flash allowed for me to produce some stop motion animation of sorts with the PNGs however it was by no means the best product to use during the final production stages. Flash animations would take place in a separate window and since I needed to overlay animation onto live action footage for my final piece, I had to seek out some other software.
Flash also proved useful in allowing me to produce short animatics as opposed to storyboards. I used storyboards in my foundation project and even the early stages of production within my advanced project; I shifted to using an animatic as to aid with the editing process. This technique allowed for me to better visualise and block out key shots in relation to the song, this was essential within my advanced project given the nature of the products i.e. a music video. Editing within a music video requires a great sense of timing and I was able to better refine the edits to the beat by having the initial editing experience through creating the animatic. It was relatively easy to do and ultimately proved to be beneficial in the long term.

Unlike during my foundation project, I used After Effects during this project as to animate over some footage I shot. What was amazingly efficient was having the ability to link the After Effects project with the Premiere project, giving me real-time synergy between the two projects – anything I did in After Effects would appear in a separate open window for the Premiere project so I could watch the animations back and see how to improve them. Initially, I was unsure as to how the software worked, seeing as I was too intimidated to use it during my foundation project. However, due to the use of online YouTube tutorials, I was able to add these animations to my final music video.
There were some issues in using After Effects, namely not knowing where the animation was on the screen for Premiere; in Premiere I had included some black aspect ratio lines, or at least mimicked them by simply adding black bar assets in post. However, these black lines did not feature in the open After Effects project which meant I had to animate some sections of the screen that would not be seen in the final product – as to maintain consistency in the animation. Furthermore, the software did not have the same onion-skinning tool that I often used in Flash for frame-by-frame animation; this meant I would often have to visualise where certain lines were and essentially guess where the next frame should start, likely accounting for the somewhat erratic or shaky animation in some parts.

Adobe Photoshop was useful throughout the project, both within the video and the ancillary products. In terms of using Photoshop for the video, I would cut out images of the artist’s head and give them a transparent background – exporting as a PNG. These were then easily overlaid into Premiere to be edited as stop motion assets or animated over using After Effects; the use of real imagery with the vibrant animations had such a contrast that I was able to emulate the Dadaism present in the psychedelic genre. The process for cutting out each asset was long and laborious however there seems to have been no other means for doing this. I could certainly have used Microsoft Paint however I would likely not have been able to cut the image out as precisely, nor could I have created a transparent background; Paint was reserved for pasting images for the blog together.

Moving on, Photoshop also proved useful with creating the digipak products. The software allowed for me to construct abstract imagery through superimposing images over one another, the layering tool being incredibly useful in separating assets. I was able to produce different versions of the album cover easily and quickly since the use of filters and various colour or saturation sliders gave instantly new designs or palettes. There was also a liquefy tool that I used a lot for the back cover as to create a warped image to again reflect conventions of the psychedelic genre of my project. The software was also versatile in that I could edit images and add text, which proved especially helpful with my magazine ad and its production.

I did struggle with uploading some hand-written text as it would appear extremely pixelated when resizing it in Photoshop, however, to overcome this I simply used Adobe Illustrator in order to trace over the existing text and effectively digitize it and prevent the digital versions from becoming pixelated when added to Photoshop.

Hardware – Production

In terms of hardware I used a Canon 600 D camera, a Canon PowerShot SX510, a lightweight travel tripod, and an iPhone 7. The Canon 600 D was used in my preliminary video with various lenses, including a fisheye lens, but I was unable to use this camera throughout the project as it belonged to my sibling and had limited storage. The fact that I did not have a high quality camera of my own, led to me using the school’s Canon Powershot.

The Canon PowerShot was not as powerful as the 600 D – failing to capture high definition footage in low-lighting – and as a result often made footage grainy, I then attempted to remedy these shots as best I could in post since reshooting would not be a possibility. I believe I managed to regain some quality in the shots however, this could have been avoided had I had either a better quality camera or shot in a well-lit location (making it look darker in post). One positive to the Powershot, is how it was lightweight and allowed for me to do multi-cam set ups since the camera was rather common in school; the multi-cam setups even made it easier to sync footage and therefore cut between the wide shot and differently angled close ups.

The tripod was very useful for maintaining stability in certain wide shots, I used it especially during the section in the video prior to the character drinking milk - as to represent the stability of reality before the 'drug-induced fantasy'. After this section, the majority of shots are shaky and handheld as to represent the growing instability of the character's mental state; the wide shots of the trio performing in the television remain rather stable as to show the shift in power between reality and fantasy. The tripod was lightweight and therefore allowed for me to easily carry it from location to location, which was ideal given the range of positions I placed it in during the shoot.

When it came to recording audio, I did not have to focus on this area as much as in my foundation project. My advanced project ensured that the audio was a recording provided to me by my client, of which I had little to no control over however I am aware that he recorded using his iPhone as well. In terms of the iPhone 7 that I used, it was helpful in allowing me to record audio for certain portions of the video; I namely used the voice memo app on the iPhone to record sound effects from soundbible and another couple of sites. Ultimately, however, I decided to abandon the use of these sound effects from earlier cuts and instead settled for a royalty free ringing sound from YouTube which I then downloaded. The phone was also useful in recording audio for my other Evaluation Questions, ensuring the audio was clear and did not have much background noise. Additionally, I used the iPhone’s torch utility in order to provide light during my music video’s shoot – proving to be a rather reliable light source for illuminating the areas I wanted.

I suppose digital media and online sites such as YouTube also provided me some benefits in the production of my video, as can be seen through the use of royalty free sound effects and kaleidoscopic animations and background visuals. I suppose one of the limitations of using these sites comes in the form of the school's protection policy; I was unable to access certain videos of interest from YouTube or even remain in contact with my client through Facebook. The school servers had blocked these sites resulting in my progress being somewhat stifled - since I could not access areas of research during school hours.