1. Gemma Goodwin
[Q4.] How did you use media technologies in the construction and
research, planning and evaluation stages?
At the beginning of planning and researching into our artist to choose from, we
researched on the internet at different sites to try and find an unsigned artist. One of
the sites we looked on was www.unsigned.com. When we finally chose our artist we
sent an email to her via MySpace (which
I have print screened this aside) and as a
group of three we began planning our
storyboard. We got together inside our
media lessons as well as outside to plan
what the narrative of our video will be.
We shared ideas and drew them onto
the storyboard and once that was done,
we took photographs of it with the
schools camera to upload them onto the
computer to create an animatic.
We looked at different artists and case studies such as Britney Spears and Madonna
being the two main artists we looked at. We evaluated and watched their videos on
www.youtube.com. This enabled us to see any video we would like too watch at any
time, which contrasts with back in the day when the first music video came out and
the technology and internet wasn’t around and many people were unable to do this.
I print screened the search page of ‘YouTube’
to show the site we used but to also convey how internet technology today has
upgraded over the years.
We created a Blog in which we wrote down what we done each day from the
beginning progress such as the research to the filming
etc. we used the website www.blogspot.com to do this.
The image aside is a print screen of my own blog.
2. Gemma Goodwin
We began filming in the half term holiday in October. We used HD cameras to film
our footage. We mostly hand held the camera when filming as we thought it would
be more realistic to portray a prostitute’s life, although we did use the tripod a few
times when filming when we focused mainly on the prostitute’s body to emphasise
on it, as we believed a steady shot would be more effective as the audience will be
able to focus more on the prostitute’s body and to portray her sexuality.
When we finished filming, we edited our footage on Apple Mac Laptops where we
used the program “Adobe Premiere Pro.” We cropped particular clips from the
whole footage that we would like to use for our video and
put them onto the timeline. We later began to edit our clips.
We cut them to parts we would like to use and put them
together with other clips to begin creating our music video
and a narrative for our video. Once we cut the clips and put
them together we tried to match the lip-syncing, we found
this to be one of the hardest things to do when editing our
video was it was a very long process and very difficult to do
as most of the syncing did not sync with the video and
audio.
We used many effects such as speed duration to speed up of slow down the artist to
make her be in sync with the lyrics and audio in the video, as we found in most parts
she was either singing too fast or too slow. We started to put in effects and
transitions. Some of the effects we used were: Cross-dissolve, Fade to white and
playing around with colour balance (which I have shown examples of these effects
below), this was because we thought that it portrayed a prostitute’s life in a realistic
way but it also fits with the genre of the song as it is very upbeat and the lyrics are
quite sexual.
Effect: Cross Dissolve.
Effect: Fade to white Effect: Colour
Balance.
We then began our ancillary tasks. As we needed to create an album cover along
with the back cover, and two images that is one the back of the booklet and the back
of the CD case, I used images of our vocalist, as she is the one who is portrayed as
singing the song. We took images on our 12 megapixel camera on the days of filming
and I found some interesting pictures of our vocalist which I would like to use.
3. Gemma Goodwin
To edit the images, we used the
program “Adobe Photoshop CS4.” I
began by opening my image. I wanted
to crop the image to focus on the
vocalist face, creating a close up of her
face. The darker edges show what part
of the image I want to crop. I used many
effects such as lighting effects to
highlight her face, this makes it a focus
point for the audience but also links to
our genre of industrial rock as it is fast,
upbeat and lively.
I wanted to make it fit with the genre of rock, so I adjusted the colours to create a
darker effect for the whole image. I added text where I chose a font to be of an edgy
effect to link with the genre of rock and included the artist name as well as the title
of the song on the front to inform the audience what the CD is.
I used black font for the
artists name to fit with
the genre of Industrial
Rock but I used red font
for the song title ‘Red
Light District’ to link with
the name of song title but
also to make it stand out
to the audience so they
can see the difference of
the artist name and
album title. I was very
pleased with my outcome
of my CD cover
4. Gemma Goodwin
I also edited a torn paper
effect in which I used a
brush effect to do so. I
thought that this would
make my album cover
look edgy which will
make it look more of a
genre ‘rock’ CD.
I used Photoshop for all of my images to make it look more like a CD cover. I included
song tracks, copyright which is copyrighted under the image of my artists, my own
record label logo which I created using the ‘brush tool’ and I also inserted tattoo on
one of the images to make it fit with the genre of rock.
I have pasted a print screen below to show this:
I have inserted a ‘tattoo’ on the vocalists’ ankle to make it fit with
the rock genre as many rock artists have tattoos.
I used the program ‘Adobe Photoshop’ many times when editing my pictures as I
wanted to make it look more of an ‘Industrial Rock’ genre as that is the genre of our
video. This shows how modern technology is used as many artists nowadays used
Photoshop to create an airbrushed image to look better and to sell the artist and
artist’s CD, as I have done for my artist.
5. Gemma Goodwin
I also used this program ’Adobe Photoshop’ to create my magazine advert. I began
by choosing a suitable image of the vocalist to represent her as sexual and flirty but
not to the extreme as we had to keep our audience in mind, and as it is a magazine
ad, many people of different age groups is possible to see it.
I have presented my magazine ad below:
I wanted to place the
vocalist in the centre
making it centre image.
This is because it will
grab the audience’s
attention. I placed the
writing of the artists
name on the top of the
image, this is because it
will be the first thing
the audience will see,
therefore informing
them who the artist it. I
then placed the song
title underneath the
artist’s name, but in smaller font. This is also to inform the audience on the album
title as well as the track of our video. I wrote in bigger font ‘Out Now’ informing the
audience that they are able to buy the album, now. Giving them all the information
they may need. I pasted the album cover underneath the writing. I don’t this so the
audience will know what the album will look like. I created a red border around the
CD cover to grab the audience’s attention. I also placed a miniature image of ‘KKKK’
which I had taken from Kerrang as it is the magazine’s ranking points. Kerrang is also
the magazine I analysed when researching on magazines and adverts.