Wednesday, 16 December 2015

4. How Did I Use New Media Technologies Throughout the Project?


PRE-PRODUCTION

  • I have displayed all my work on a blogging site called Blogger; this allows an easy and professional looking way to show my research and final products. I used images and gifs to show clips of videos I studied.
  • The main online tools I used to research different styles of music products were youtube and google. YouTube has  ahuge diversity of different styles of music videos and I took alot of inspiration from some; I watched videos such as 'Congo Natty - Revolution' aswell as Mungo's Hi Fi - Society. I used used Youtube for tutorials on how to edit different parts on my video when I stuggled to use the new (for me) application Adobe Premiere Elements.

PRODUCTION

  • A high quality DSLR camera was used to film and shoot my clips; I hadnt used a DSLR camera to film before so it was a new experience and I really enjoyed working with it testing out different shots and experimenting with different light adjusting levels. My knowledge on the camera has greatly increased and I would like to use it again for future projects. In addition to using the camera I used a tri-pod in most if not all of my clips allowing me to take steady shots in the highest quality.

POST PRODUCTION

  • The two main applications I used to edit my media products were Adobe Premiere Elements and Adobe Photoshop
  • I found that Premiere Elements was easy to get the hang of after a couple of trial edits. The sleek interface allowed easy access to all my clips and really wasn't too confusing. I used effects such as 'Mirror' aswell as contrast changing techniques to make my video the way I wanted it. I used the zoom in on the timeline to accurately place and cut my clips according to the beats on my song; I feel that I managed to do this quite successfully and succinctly. I used transitions such as Fade to Black to begin and end my video; I felt this worked well with the music which also fades quieter towards the end.
  • I used Photoshop my videos aswell my digipak and magazine advert. I am very confident with photoshop and I feel that my skill has allowed me to design a sleek looking advert and pack whilst keeping all the media conventions. I used tools such as Gaussian Blur to create depth in my piece, I used Add Noise to make my products give them more of an authentic low quality feel. I used the Gradient Map tool on Black to white to keep a colour scheme throughout.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Tuesday, 15 December 2015

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I kept synergy between the 3 products in many different ways; the first one was keeping a dark colour scheme throughout the video, digipak and advert; blacks, reds, greys, greens. The actor and model in all 3 products was the same as is wearing the same clothes shown in the videos.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The genre I picked for my three texts was Drum and Bass/Jungle; a fast paced beat with reggae lyrics over the top. The genre I picked has an audience of mostly teens and young adults (16-25) as it can be seen as quite aggressive music.

 In my video, I followed conventions of a typical DnB video; fast pace editing, lots of cuts and setting which may seem quite urban. I looked at a few other Congo Natty music videos and found the use of low quality clips make the video seem authentic and I tried to replicate that in (some) of my shots. Above is a music video by Congo Natty and on the right is how I tried to replicated an old style look by using different filters on Adobe Premiere elements.

The urban locations I used sticks with Jungle conventions; one of the lyrics from 'Junglist' is 'From the Hood I came, and too the Hood I must return. I used an underpass and ontop of a carpark as well as more private locations like my friends Teepee which he has in his garden, which gave a rugged backdrop I thought suited my music video.


Another convention of a jungle music video, is that there is a lot of smoking!! The 'rastafarian' image which is given off compliments the reggae lyrics, so I tried to include seens of my actor too make it relate more to a Jungle music video.

Another convention when it comes to camera shots would be how things go in and out of focus; usually zoomed in close; this adds a more homely quality to the video; I added this to my video in the first clip when I show the record spinning.

DIGIPAK AND MAGAZINE ADVERT

I kept my digipak conventional by using a template for a cd case; i kept it sleek and professional with a limit colour palette (blacks, greys, greens and reds), I did the same for the magazine advert which i explicitly had looking similar to the CD cover too attract more attention to my product. When designing the cd cover I looked at traditional jungle records and tried to make it look similar to that of a real one; keeping it text based and keeping the fonts similar, its simple but sleek and stands out.
The magazine advert was made using the same image as the cd cover creating an explicit link between the two. The actor wore baggy cloths and had his hood up making him look more street.
advert.jpg



Digipak Final

Music video final

http://youtu.be/Mb1CHGyrZHo

Magazine Advert