Friday 30 March 2012
Thursday 29 March 2012
Equipment & Technology used
To record:
- FujiFilm FinePix A400 Digital Camera
- 4 Megapixel. 3x optical zoom lens.
- I used the Finepix A400 to record the footage for the video and also the images for the ancillary products. As the camera is a simple model, the video record mode is unable to capture sound alongside the video, and so made it easier seeing as though it'd save me time and effort gating and removing excess noise once I entered the editing phase. For the images, the quality was great, I didn't need to do anything with them at the stage of capturing the pictures, I knew I was going to edit them pretty heavily for the finished versions. So everything took off the camera became the bare bone structure of my work.
To edit footage:
- Windows Movie Maker
- Having used this program in the past, I knew it well and was comfortable with it's features and limits. The original footage and the audio track were imported and it became a case of fitting the shots in order to the timeline and getting them synchronized with the song so that both ran fluently and in unison. I added a 'Smudge stick' effect to the video, this allowed me to relate the video to the CD's artwork. Each clip also had a fade in and out from and to black, this gave the video more smoothness through the transitions of each frame instead of jump cutting to every separate clip.
To edit imagery:
- Macromedia Fireworks 8
- Again, like Windows Movie Maker, having used this program a great deal in the past, I was at home using Fireworks rather than having to adapt to Adobe Photoshop or other image editing software. All the original images were edited heavily through changing the hue/saturation, brightness/contrast and I too manually edited the curves and leveling. Zoom effects were also added to most of the images to help give me the abstract theme I longed to achieve. To further edit the pictures used and to create alternate versions of my products I saved each file twice, one as a .PNG file, that served as the template for all further workings, and the other as a .JPEG file, in it's highest quality as I could possibly set.
Computers used:
- Dell Optiplex 980
- Dell Inspiron Mini
- FujiFilm FinePix A400 Digital Camera
- 4 Megapixel. 3x optical zoom lens.
- I used the Finepix A400 to record the footage for the video and also the images for the ancillary products. As the camera is a simple model, the video record mode is unable to capture sound alongside the video, and so made it easier seeing as though it'd save me time and effort gating and removing excess noise once I entered the editing phase. For the images, the quality was great, I didn't need to do anything with them at the stage of capturing the pictures, I knew I was going to edit them pretty heavily for the finished versions. So everything took off the camera became the bare bone structure of my work.
To edit footage:
- Windows Movie Maker
- Having used this program in the past, I knew it well and was comfortable with it's features and limits. The original footage and the audio track were imported and it became a case of fitting the shots in order to the timeline and getting them synchronized with the song so that both ran fluently and in unison. I added a 'Smudge stick' effect to the video, this allowed me to relate the video to the CD's artwork. Each clip also had a fade in and out from and to black, this gave the video more smoothness through the transitions of each frame instead of jump cutting to every separate clip.
To edit imagery:
- Macromedia Fireworks 8
- Again, like Windows Movie Maker, having used this program a great deal in the past, I was at home using Fireworks rather than having to adapt to Adobe Photoshop or other image editing software. All the original images were edited heavily through changing the hue/saturation, brightness/contrast and I too manually edited the curves and leveling. Zoom effects were also added to most of the images to help give me the abstract theme I longed to achieve. To further edit the pictures used and to create alternate versions of my products I saved each file twice, one as a .PNG file, that served as the template for all further workings, and the other as a .JPEG file, in it's highest quality as I could possibly set.
Computers used:
- Dell Optiplex 980
- Dell Inspiron Mini
Audience Research
This was a vital element for my product, due to my video and the story behind it being aimed at somewhat of a niche audience, I devised a questionnaire that would allow me to take what my target market prefer in music videos of my genre and thus create a video that would appeal. I gave the questionnaire out to 100 people, dividing it equally between gender. Before they answered, I stressed that their answers should revolve around the genre in which my song is in and the video meant to follow.
Here is the submitted questionnaire:
Here is the submitted questionnaire:
Understanding your audience is one of, if not the most important aspect of research before the creation process of the product. As it allows you to further base your work off your target audience.
Ancillary research
Front cover:
As my video is a soft acoustic based song, I wished for the album art to be a little more abstract, following in the footsteps of the following:
As my video is a soft acoustic based song, I wished for the album art to be a little more abstract, following in the footsteps of the following:
The one to the left inspired the idea for mine to be high in contrast in terms of the colour. The clash of the blue with the red provides a feast for the eyes. And the one to the right I focused on the background instead of the foreground, the zoom effect adds a great feel to it, allowing the atmosphere to be be created, yet keeping it from focus. I was inspired to believe that if I could combine both aspects of the albums into one cover art of my own, then I'd be able to not only capture the attention of people, but too allow them to decifer what exactly the image was and what meanings it conveys, I hoped for each individual to find that they could reflect on it.
The back cover & Poster:
The back cover and the poster both followed deep inspiration from the 2 front covers shown above. Though with the poster I decided to forego the zoom effect and maintain the image's sharpness. The back cover however I wanted to level down in terms of it being to busy due to the fact that text would be added, therefore, I made it more minimal in it's appearance.
Reflection of the shoot & Description of the shooting schedule plan
The shoot was to be held in the same location, though unfortunately the initial plan to obtain the footage in 1 sitting failed. However I was forced to work around this. The weather played havoc with my schedule. I planned for it to be done in one full day, of which the weather had to be nice. I had multiple dates available to record, though most of the time these dates failed to meet my necessity and urgency of recording. Once I had obtained half the footage in 2 weekends, I had to ensure there would be little, most preferably no continuity errors, the weather then had to remain the same or very similar each time recording took place. Once I was achieving to get the footage, it ran smoothly, though admittedly the quality is not to the standards I required due to both me and my helping camera woman busy in other areas of work. The video also had to be cut down, the original song and footage would last around 5 minutes, though I had to cut the product to 3 minutes. This turn of evens meant that I had to find a suitable place within the timeline of the song and footage to create a decent cadence. As abrupt as the finished version may be, I made sure the song finished on the root note, allowing more of a feeling that it had ended.
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