Tuesday 12 March 2013

How We Made Our CD DigiPak

Below is a video showing how we made each of the panels of our CD DigiPak in Photoshop:



Tuesday 5 March 2013

Task 4 - How Did You Use New Media Technologies In The Construction And Research, Planning And Evaluation Stages?


Directors Commentary Script

Task 4 - Media Technology In Post Production

Final Cut Pro was a key piece of technology that we used in the post production stage due to use editing our music video on it. I used Final Cut Pro to edit my Thriller which mean't that I had already built up a basic skills base from the program. However there was much more to learn. I had to learn how to sync the music video to the beat of the music, which allowed us to develop the skills on Final Cut Pro checking that the video of Rachel singing starts and when the start of the singing on the song started. We did this by dragging the shots onto the timeline and cutting the shots where it matches the song using the blade. We then started editing the shots, cutting it where we wanted the shots to go. In the 'Browser' section I was able to look through all of the clips and decide which ones I wanted to use and which ones I didn't want. The 'Viewer' and 'Canvas' section allowed me to view the clips and final video. The 'Timeline' section was where I dragged the clips onto and edit them together. This allowed me to put the final music video together.




To create the website I used Wix which enabled us to create a free website to promote our artist. My inspiration was taken from similar artist' websites such as Black Sabbath. We also used YouTube as well as further tutorials to gain the knowledge on how to use Wix. It was a challenge to get used to at the start but was a great experience.



Photoshop became another essential media technology that we used in post production as it allowed us to create and edit our CD DigiPak. This software allowed me to edit images, layer text with images, resize and crop. It also allowed us to edit the pictures so that they represented our artist and genre to the best of our ability. During the photoshop stage, I struggled a bit, as I had never used it before. Having said this I managed to get a photography student to help me and teach me what to do, which enabled me to help with the DigiPak.



We used a Timelapse on the day to make a record of the shoot day taking a picture every 1 second to allow us to have a picture of everything we had done. This mean't that we hada record of every little thing we did on the day.

Task 4 - Media Technology In Pre - Production

We used a range of digital technologies for the various stages in our advance portfolio. We used these technologies to record our progress, development and journey. These were essential for our coursework as it allowed us to display how we progress as a student as well as understanding the technologies used.
Media technology was particularly important in the pre - production process of our music video not only to prepare myself for filming the music video and the editing after but to research our artist. 

Blogger has been a large part of our whole coursework as we have used it the whole way through our coursework. We have used it as a reflective diary, showing every part of our research and planning throughout making our music video.


Another important online technology that I used was the internet. The internet was a key tool that I used to research bands of a similar genre to mine and also what heavy metal music videos look like to give me an idea of what our music video should look like. An example of a heavy metal band I looked at was Black Sabbath

Before I filmed the final music video, I drew out the storyboards on a piece of paper, to make it easier for me to imagine what the video would look like. We filmed the story boards with a Sony NX 5, and created an animatic using Final Cut Pro so that we could see what the music video would look like. This allowed me as well as my group to see if there were any mistakes which we could prevent from happening on the shoot day with the real video.


 

I used my Blackberry take photos of designs and storyboards quickly and instantly to upload to my blog or for whatever I needed it for. This allowed us to create a detailed account of everything we had done in the research and planning stage.