Evaluation Task 4: How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Websites, Software and Hardware

Jack and I have mentioned about the equipment we used in this post: http://msrjarnold.blogspot.com/2011/04/shooting-diary-equipment-and-cast.html. I have also made presentation on the technologies which added my project and its development.

Hardware we used included:
-The school computers
-My Laptop
-The two Standard Definition Mini DV Cameras
-iPhones
The school computers are very outdated. They have only (what I estimate to be) 2GB ram. When running powerful software such as the Adobe Suite 3GB ram is the bare minimum for optimal performance. For this reason jack used his Laptop (Acer Aspire 5332) which has more Ram and Adobe CS4, so it was faster and post production was easier. However I wasn’t so fortunate to have the soft wear which would have allowed me to do the same. I completed the post production part of the project/ editing on the school computers using Adobe Premier pro CS3  .
The cameras we used were only SD, but had we been filming on HD I believe the file sizes and compression would have been to much for the school computers and even my laptop at some points. After weighing up the costs and benefits, we decided to use SD.
Our iPhones were very handy at keeping in contact with each other, sending images of locations, being updated with facebook alerts from members of the group (the free alternative we used to texting). They also allowed us to get access to the internet when on location, so we didn't have to leave set to get the information we needed.
Software we used included:
-Adobe Premier Pro CS3
-Adobe After Effects CS3 + CS4
-Adobe Photo Shop CS3
-Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook allowed us to communicate with each other within school, send files and links.
Adobe Premier Pro was the non-linear editing software we used to cut footage to the music and get basic effects and transitions completed.

Tools and Equipment on Prezi

Editing on Prezi

Adobe After Effects was the 2.5D motion graphics and compositing software jack and I used to create all of the advanced effects in our film such as the clones and gun fire.
Adobe Photoshop was mainly used by Louis in order to create the Digipack and alter the photos from the photo shoot. It has a huge variety of photo editing tools that Louis was able to use to get the look just right for our Ancillary task.
Websites we used included:
www.blogger.com
www.youtube.com
www.facebook.com
www.voki.com

www.google.com

www.flicker.com

www.vimeo.com

We were able to use facebook to talk to one another, share links, images, ideas, videos and create events for when we had to film. This was essential for getting everyone organised. This is also useful because it is completely free and we all used it prior to the music video. We were also able to use it to get our finished products out to an audience of 1000's who (most) are our target audience.

Youtube gave us access to hundreds of music videos of the same genre that we were able to analyse and get inspiration from. We were able to look at what worked and what didn't work from other videos and incorporate our favourite bits and make them our own.

Youtube was also what we used as a sounding board for our own ideas. We uploaded an early scene we had recorded to get some audience feedback.

We were able to then get feedback from a wide audience. We gathered from the "likes" it received and a comment saying: "Looks great but must have taken an age.", that people thought it looked good. We therefore kept it in our end product.

Vimeo was used much like youtube, however the videos on vimeo are a lot more "semi-professional", it is mainly full of people who have made their own videos and are using it as a professional video hosting site. This enabled us to look at music videos made on a zero budget, unlike the ones we had been watching by The Prodigy and Chase & Status.

Blogger was used in order to keep an up to date diary of everything we had done in relation to the projects and also evaluate it.

I receive my Gmail emails straight to my iPhone, and my Youtube account is connected to my Gmail. This convergence of technology allowed for me to be instantly informed when someone had provided feedback on our video. This was very useful in the evaluation stage as I was able to write about the feedback people had given just as fast as I had received it.

In conlucsion it would have been impossible to get the projects completed to the standard that we have without the use of all the technology.

We are on Google!

Track Listing

We were running out of time to finish our final edits and the digipack in time to meet the deadline, so we decided to cut as many corners as need be, so we decided to use a random band name generator and use the ones that sounded half decent as our track names.You simply click a button and a randomly generated name will appear and we used those. This saved many pointless minutes that we would have wasted trying to imagine these track names up ourselves.

• How is your research into institutions responsible for the production and regulation of the media influence your production work?

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music. In the industry of music, a record label is a brand and a trade mark associated with the marketing of music. When choosing a label you have to think carefully about what genre that label is associated with, what audience follows that label and how they distribute the tracks. There for we had to find a label that represented us and our style of music and kept us independent and original. As a small new upcoming band we aimed to get an independent label such as ‘XL’ which is based in the United Kingdom and they started off with the prodigy before they grew and became famous. The prodigy our now releasing a new album under their own label, as they have outgrown other labels and this would be where we would hope to achieve.

Many bands similar to our style stick with their first independent label to keep their music original and not to sell out to popular demand as bands such as ‘green day’ and ‘lost profits’ have over the years.  To the major labels such as Universal records, whose main aim is more money orientated rather than the music. So an independent label would be ideal for our band. Our whole style breaks against conformity and we would need a record label that would fit in with that, so if we were to sign for a major label we would be selling out our beliefs and that’s not right.

After researching these labels we decided to go for a small independent label we found called Breakbeat Kaos. A British independent record label based in London, UK that specializes in drum and bass. Starting in 2005, Breakbeat Kaos has released studio album debuts from Pendulum, Fresh and J Majik & Wickaman. The label has also released singles by artists including Baron, Chase & Status, D.Kay and Future Prophecies. Since its foundation, Breakbeat Kaos has released thirty one singles and four albums from more than thirteen artists, in addition to fourteen singles released through its sub labels, Under Construction and Dogs on Acid.

How did your research into audience contribute to your production work?

My research into our target audience did not contribute a lot to our final production work. We are all in the target range that we are hoping to become our audience. Therefore we didn’t have to research to much into what our target audience wants and likes as we all influenced our production work and therefore is already aimed at the correct target audience. However I did conduct a lot of research to solidify our point, for example I researched how many people are in our target range, what their background is like and what other music they are into. This was made easy as we had only to ask our friends as they are all in the target range and there information is perfectly valid for our research. So therefore we did not need to conduct much research as we had all the information we needed from within our group. So our research did contribute into our production work to a small extent, but we did not need much research so therefore there was not a lot of influence from it.

How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?

Research into genre contributed to our production work to a great extent as we had to make sure everything we created fitted in with the other styles within this genre, this influenced the album digipack that we are making for our auxiliary task. The influences came from other albums such as Pendulum’s album ‘In Silico’ which at first glance seems like just a colourful circle within a circuit board, however when you look deeper into the image you begin to notice that it is in fact an embryo not a circle and the circuit board around the outside transforms into sperm cells. This album greatly influenced us as we then wanted to create a similar style album cover with almost hidden images to catch the attention of our target audience. Because of this influence we decided to create a circuit board style cover which would then enable us to create subliminal album artwork.

However after researching further we decided that was not the path we wished to take and were then influenced by the album artwork of chase and status’s album ‘No More Idols’, which consists of just the tittle of the band and album and a full scale picture of a bulldog’s head. We were going to use the same style but exchange the dog for mine which features in our film, keeping it consistent, meaningful and slightly more original. But after many group discussions we decided that this was too similar and changed it yet again.

This time were going to keep it simple and concise. We wanted it to fit in with our music video and therefore decided to use stills from our film and previous band photo’s we took as the artwork, Louis would then use the skills he has on photo shop to edit the pictures to give them an edgy feel. For example one image is totally black and white except for my shoes which are purple. This brings the image to life and attracts the attention of any potential customers who would wish to buy this album. This way it would be totally individual and original to us, and could not be done for any copyright. Also it would be consistent as there will be continuity between all of our products which will make it all seem more professional.

Group Discussions - Digipack Alterations

After calling a group meeting we discussed everything that we had been doing and all decided to go against our original plan of using a circuit board theme throughout our digipack. Instead we chose to use new photo's we took and stills from our music video. We were then greatly influenced by the album cover of Chase and Status's album, No More Idols (shown below).

From this we used a still of the dog in our film and got a still image of it barking and incorporated it as the cover for our digipack. Then Louis took some photo's of me in the white mask and walking about, altered the images, changing the contrast, colour scheme and many other effects to give it an edgy feel. However only one of the images is in colour and the rest are in black and white.

However after further discussion we reviewed that our cover was to similar to the chase and status album, therefore meaning we had to start it all over again. This time we were thinking of using the white mask in our album cover, as this is totally individual and has not been done by anyone that we are aware of.

Later after further group discussions we decided to have to the inside of the digi pack all one image, using only the feet of our abbey road fake.

From this point we manipulated some of the band photo's we took at the beginning of this course, using Louis' photo shop skills to  turn the main cover, which consists of me standing against a brick wall with the white mask.  

After many trial with pictures, text stlyes we came up with a rough outline of what we wanted our digi pack to look like. With a consistant colour scheme throughout, which is linked with our website. However after gathering some feed back it was clear that it needed more colour to really engage our audience and to hold thier attention. So from here will work on bringing the pictures to life with colour, whilst still keeping the consistancy throughout our work.

This is our final and finished digi pack, we removed the image of the feet as it had no real resemblance to anything within our film. So instead we added an image we took a while back of a finger with what is ment to be an LSD tab, which helps keep the continuity through out all our media products.