Evaluation Question 4

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






last year we used Final Cut Express, the same programme as we are using now, I have used it in a lot more detail due to have to add more effects included as opposed to last year when it was very much focused on the narrative. When I started using Final Cut Express last year it was a lot more complicated due to never having used it before, but when using it this year to create the music video it was a lot easier as i had that previous experience.

On the other hand, a programme I used which I was not quite so familiar with was Photoshop. Although I had used this a few times during GCSE's, I had only done very simple designs on it so did not have the knowledge of how to create products that we did in the Digipack.

Similarly, with last year we used blogger in order to produce our coursework. One thing I did which I did not know how to do was label all of my posts and put them into categories. This makes the blog look generally tidier and makes it easier for someone looking over the blog to find the specific information they are looking for. To the left is a screen shot of the categories i decided to group them in.

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Final Digipack Poster

final poster

Final DigiPack - CD

Front Cover

Inside left and right

Inside lyrics sheet

Back Cover

Final Music Video

After applying all the improvements we were given to our music video, we uploaded it onto youtube. This is shown below:

Improvements given on the Music Video

After handing in our first draft of the music video, we recieved feedback in which to improve our grade and general outcome of the video. Below is a list of what we were told to improve on:

• The narrative build up was too long
• Match the Tempo - When Harry opens the door add an effect to make his movements more distinctive.
• Keep everything up to where chloe blows the candle out.
• First 35 seconds need reworking - perhaps concentrate on Harrison performing. 
• Try switching the ending with the beginning 
• Include more of an verity of shots within the argument scene. 
• Be more creative slow parts up and speed some down. 
• Chop it up more. eg. gig scene
• Cut Harrison more into gig part 
• Stop the pit gig when music changes as it goes on for too long. 
• Make 2:46 onwards calmer Fade the ending out
• Letter box editing perhaps swap around images to get more included within it.

Font Experiments

Rather than using just a standard font from photoshop itself, we decided to go onto http://www.dafont.com/ and download a font which would link more with similar products of the same genre and that would impersonate the fonts that Chase and Status use through-out all of their posters and CD's. Below are the various different fonts that we thought would be appropriate for what we were looking for:

In the end, after looking through various different categories on the website, we decided on the font below as it was the most similar to those that Chase and Status use:

More experiments

After doing the more simplistic experiments, we decided to use similar screenshots from our music video and play around with different effects to get a more "cartoony" outcome. Below are some examples of the effects we used.

One thing we found difficult when creating these was finding an appropriate font for the title that was similar to the ones used in many other drum and bass CD covers.

Experimenting with Photoshop

We decided that in order for us to gain practise in creating a CD cover, the best way to do this was experiment with different ideas in photoshop itself. Below are a couple of examples that we created (not our final piece)

CD Cover Ideas

Above is an imagine of the plan myself and Chloe created in order to gather some ideas of what we could include on the CD cover. We designed this on the basis of other Chase and Status CD covers as well as others of a similar genre.

Final Cut Express

We had many shots from the pit gig which would be effective in the part where it is just music with no lyrics. We didn't want to over-do the narrative so added in performance and gig shots. Below is the Final Cut Express timeline with our gig parts.

Final Cut Express

In order to keep the viewers interested, we decided it would be good to up the speed and cuts of the clips where ever the speed of the song did. This happened while Harry (main character) was stood outside smoking and throws his cigarette on the floor. We decided to use letter box effects, where the position of the clip would change whenever the beat does. We also did it in the following location where Harry is sat on 3 different bollards, and it jumps from one bollard to another again, on the beat. Below is a screen shot of the cuts we did on final cut express.

Final Cut Express

While editing, we figured out how to use markers. This was very useful for us as we were using many fast cuts in our video when the speed picked up. By using markers, we could muddle the clips about while seeing where they were originally incase we needed to move it back. This was also useful to mark certain times in the song that we needed to remember for future reference. In the imagine below the little green tabs show the markers.

Editing process

To start with, we had to filter through all of our footage, ruling out certain shots that were not very good and that we didn't think we would end up using. This was a fairly long process as although each clip was around 20 seconds long, there was a lot of them and we needed to ensure that we would use the best clip possible for our video.

Uploading footage

When we finished filming, we decided to get straight on with converting and uploading all of our footage onto the macs and start editing. Due to doing a similar task last year, where we had to film and edit different shots, we vaguely knew what needed to be done where and how to convert and edit the shots. We used a programme called 'Final Cut Express'

Last part of filming

Once we had filmed the scenes in London, got footage from the Pit Gigs and done the performance shots of Harrison we had one last bit of filming to do. Rather that going straight from the London scenes to the gig, we decided it may be more affective if we have a couple of shots of Harry (main male character) walking into the pit to show that he was also there. This therefore gave us a couple more seconds footage making it run more smoothly.

Plan B promotional sites

Chase and Status promotional sites

Advertisement Inspiration

CD Cover Inspiration

Below are various different Chase and Status and Plan B CD covers I have collected together in order to gain some inspiration for out ancillary task.

Pit Performance - Sound and Lighting

A couple of boys in our year are good at doing sound and lighting so we thought it may be quite a good idea if they set up and help us for the part in our music video. Due to us filming this part just before charities week, they asked if we would be able to do it in those last 3 days of term, but this did not fit in with us as that area was being used every break and lunch. Due to this we decided to film one of the pit gigs to include in our audience then do some seperate filming of harrison and just control the lighting outselves. This worked out fine as we still got the footage that we needed.

Planning our journey

During the time of deciding the best ways to get to our main location, London, we had to look at the different ways of travelling and decide which way would be best for us to get there. We initially thought driving may be good as it would give us more freedom with times and meant we wouldn't have to carry all of our props and cameras etc. with us all day. The only problem with this one was that not enough of us were driving so all  of us as well as Chloe's dad would not be able to fit in one car.
This then led us to our final decision of getting the train, although more expensive we knew we would be able to all get there together, and at the same time. One problem with this was that on the day, we faced the problem that some trains were not running so would need to get a bus. This would be inconvenient for us as the journey would take much longer due to traffic and detours, but luckily when it came to booking our tickers we were told our journey would run smoothly.
Myself and Chloe sat down and planned our journey, deciding which stops would be most beneficial to get off at saving us the most time.
Below is an image of the underground train map:

We decided it would be most beneficial for us to get the train from Audley End to Tottenham Hale, then Victoria Line to Green Park then switch to the Piccadilly Line getting off at Hyde Park Corner. There was then about a 5 minute walk from the station to the apartment we decided on filming in.

Actors - Main Female

This job was a lot easier as there were more female's that were up for playing this role who would take it seriously. One of our close friends, Chloe, said she would be up for playing this role. We knew she would be reliable as she knows how important this would be for us and is also doing A level drama meaning she would take it seriously and get into the role well.

Actors - Extra Male

We needed another main character in our music video who would play "the cheater". Similarly to the main male character, we found it quite difficult to find someone who would take this seriously. Originally we were going to use a friend called Jai but unfortunately he was not available to do the dates that we needed so we managed to find someone else called Harry who was up for playing the role.

Actors - Main Male

We found that finding a male performer who would take our task seriously very hard as, without sounding sexist, there are more girls doing drama than boys and the majority of the boys who did do drama didn't fit the image we were looking for or weren't available on the dates we needed them. In the end, we chose a friend called Harry who we knew would take the role seriously due to the fact he knew how important it was for us to get this done.

The Strangers Performance

Luckily for us, one of our teachers friends is in a band who agreed to come in and perform for our media class in order for us all to gain some experience in filming skills such as effective camera shots, positioning of the band and working out how to correctly do lip syncing.
We filmed it in an area called "The Pit" where various different music events and drama performances are based so would be the perfect location for this. It has two levels allowing us to get different shots from above as well as shots from the floor at the same level as the band.
The performance from the band was held during lunch which we did as a charitable event, but we had 2 hours before hand in order to film our footage for our music video. We got given the choice of 4 different songs, then one we had decided our song decided what would be the most appropriate positioning and camera angles to use to suit the song type. Below is the song we chose:

Instead of describing what we were planning on doing with the camera's, we drew up an image as it would be easier to imagine. It is shown below:

The red dots are the cameras, we had 2 on tripods on the upper levels which is shown on the square section on the outside, then 1 steady cam and one camera on a dolly constantly moving around in order to give us more of a variety of shots. As we only had a short amount of time to film this, we felt having 4 camera doing different things would benefit us highly as it gives us more footage to play with when putting the film together.

Below is our final product:

Running Scene

We planned part of our video to include a running scene, featuring our main male character. We thought it would be good to stay in London, so decided the walkway down the side of the River Thames would be appropriate, more specifically Embankment skate park as it is covered in Graffiti so fits the location we would want for this point in the video. Below is an imagine of this location

Home Location

Luckily enough, for myself and my partner, One of Chloe's family friends owns a house in London who agreed to let us film part of our narrative there. We knew from the beginning of planning that we wanted to use a modern looking house/flat, so this was a perfect location for us to use. Below are some images on the house. In order from top to bottom it shows the stairway, sitting room, dining room, kitchen, rooftop stairs and the rooftop view.