DEVELOPMENT - Audience Feedback: Media Class

Last week, the media teachers organised a lesson where the class watched everyone else's video on the screen at the front of the class. In our media class there were three groups and three music videos. This was a good oppurtunity to gain audience feedback and criticisms from other media student's point of view. The feedback we gained was:
- Tighten up some of the editing to make the transitions alot smoother e.g. adding in cross fades.
- Add some more band shots of extreme close ups of the guitars.

This was a positive lesson, as receiving feedback helped us to improve our video as well as helping others to improve theirs. We then had 2 days to make these changes and improve our final edit of our music video before it was handed in on the deadline (Friday 25th March). This was also the final deadline for all of our ancillary tasks to be completed.

DEVELOPMENT - Magazine Front Cover

After receiving feedback on my first magazine that I designed, I realised that it didn't include as many codes and conventions as I'd hoped, subsequently leading to a lot of dead space on the page. I decided to re-design my magazine cover and start from scratch. I looked back over my initial ideas that I sketched and chose the layout which included a lot of information on the page that had less dead space.

I chose a completely different photo of the band for the key image on the front cover. I chose a mid shot of the band as the faces will stand out easily to the audience, making it easier for the audience to identity who will be featured in the magazine. This screenshot shows how I have begun editing out the background around the models heads, which I did through using the magic wand tool.

This is the final edited image of the photo I am going to use on my front cover. I edited around the top of the image so there is space for a masthead to be placed above.

DEVELOPMENT - Principal Photography Complete!

From constructing our music video, we realised that without an indication of the boy in our narrative at the beginning, our storyline wasn't going to make sense. To solve this problem we understood that we needed to introduce the boy into our narrative from the start and to do this we filmed two shots. Myself and Kate B organised to meet up after school and film this last section of our principal photography.

The first shot we filmed was a scenario on Facebook, where the boy went from 'being in a relationship' to 'single'. This demonstrates to the audience that he no longer has a girlfriend, subsequently showing that he is lonely.

This is a photo we took the of the boy's relationship status. This is the shot that will appear in our music video to depict the boy's loneliness to the audience.

This concept of the boy being lonely coincides with the idea of the main girl being lonely as well. This is because throughout the day her friends that she is meant to be meeting up with for a day out in London, drop out at the last minute. It is at this point in the story that she realises she is alone.

Here are some photos of myself and Kate filming the relationship status on Facebook :

Along with filming the Facebook situation, we decided to film the boy walking out of the house to introduce who he is and what he looks like, so the audience would be able to indentify him in the rest of the video. We set up a tripod and filmed the boy walking out of the house, showing that he is going out for the day. This storyline of the boy is continued when the audience first sees him at the train station in the background with the girl in the foreground. The narrative develops from here.

DEVELOPMENT - Video Editing 3

Today I stayed behind after school to continue editing our music video and I focused on filling the gaps in the timeline with band shots. This task took quite a long time as I had to find an appropriate band shot that was in sync with the song.

This is a screen shot of the folder containing all of our studio footage. I looked through all of the footage and renamed all of the files appropriate to what was being shown. For instance, the file that is named 'Whole song of Dann' is useful to us, as it shows that this particular clip will show that member of the band playing the whole song. From renaming these clips, it made it easier for us to locate the clips and saved us time when importing them into our timeline, as we knew which clip contained the correct footage.  

After locating the piece of footage I was ready to use from the 'Studio Footage' folder, I imported it into the timeline. I then cut the correct piece of footage, through using the razor tool, that matched the lyrics on the song on the timeline.

The above screen shot shows that after being cut down, the length of the clip is ready to fit into the timeline with the rest of the footage in the correct place. The below screen shot demonstrates this piece of footage that I lip synced with the song.

Once I had correctly imported the band shots into the timeline, I added a video effect transition in between two of the clips. I placed a cross dissolve transition between two video clips - at the end of the left clip and the beginning of the right clip.

I have added the cross dissolve between two video clips and this screenshot shows the two clips merging together.

DEVELOPMENT - Video Editing 2

Today we had a double practical lesson where we focused primarily on the band shots within our music video and finishing the end sequence. We imported a variety of different band shots to our music video, including close ups of the lead singer and mid shots of the bass guitarist and the drummer.

Firstly, the changes we made to our band shots included adding a dip to white transition before and after all of our band shots. This effect is used to distinguish the difference between the narrative and the band shots, making it easier for the audience to identify the different sections of the video.

From receiving feedback from our peers and teachers, it suggested that some of our band shots need to be extended as they are too short. From this, it was also pointed out that we need to add motion to the band shots, such as zoom, scale and rotation, from inserting key frames into our timelines.

DEVELOPMENT - Video editing 1

Last week, during the half term, myself and Kate B re-shot some footage of the main girl using Facebook. Today we imported this footage onto our timeline on the editing machines. This introduces the character at the beginning, explaining that the girl in our video is having a day out in London, developing and structuring the narrative.

Originally, we were going to add the Facebook footage into the part of the video where the girl is ready to go out and then she logs onto Facebook. However, this was not possible as the gap to fit this in between the other footage was not long enough, and we could not move the other footage as some included band shots which were synced to the music. Therefore, we decided to move it to the beginning of the video before the song starts.

This is the beginning of our timeline. We made a black screen image on photoshop which we added to the beginning of the video. We then inserted a cross dissolve between the black screen image and the beginning footage to link it altogether and prevent the jumps in between cuts. This also demonstrates where the video begins and where the song starts.

This is the drop down menu we used to select a video dissolve transition. We imported all of the transitions to our footage and experimented with them to see what effect they had. From doing this we were able to see which one worked best and chose to use the cross dissolve. From using this it allowed us to fade out one clip while fading into another.    

An idea that we had whilst filming our footage in London's Trafalgar Square was of the main girl standing still with crowds walking past her. We would then edit it later to make it appear that the girl is standing alone and everyone is moving quickly around her, unnoticed and lonely. The group set up a tripod positioned in front of myself standing still and left it running for 3-4 minutes. Today we imported this clip onto the editing machine and altered the speed/duration of the shot to 2000%.

From reviewing our footage when the boy and girl walk into eachother on the bridge, we noticed that in one of the shots the girls head was cut off at the end of that particular shot. To solve this problem, we edited the positioning and cropped our shot in order to prevent this from happening. 

DEVELOPMENT - Magazine Cover 1

This is a screen shot of Adobe Illustrator CS3, the software I will be using to create my magazine cover.  

To find the Rolling Stone magazine font, I typed this into google and found the appropriate image. I saved this to my user area and imported it into Adobe Photoshop CS3.  

When the image was imported into Photoshop, I changed the background to transparent. This allowed me to use the magic wand tool to select the white background around the text and delete it with ease.

This screen shot shows the final edited image of the Rolling Stone text. Next, I saved this image and imported it into Illustrator.

On illustrator I set up a new print document which was a size A4 layout. I then used this as my template for my magazine cover. This screen shot shows the imported image of the Rolling Stone font placed at the top of the page, which is a convention of music magazines, including the Rolling Stone magazine. I also included the issue number, the date, the price and the magazine website in the top right hand corner, also conforming to the codes and conventions of a music magazine.

From the many pictures we took of our band, I chose a portrait image to use as the key image on the cover of the magazine. However, this image was not taken on a plain background as it was shot outside. Therefore, this made it slightly more difficult to erase the background around it. Instead of using the magic wand tool, I used the erase tool to delete the background. I changed the brush diameter size to 80 when erasing big sections, and a smaller diameter from 1 - 5 when erasing around the models.

Before importing the edited image from Photoshop onto the magazine cover in Illustrator, I added a brush stroke around the image to make the it stand out against the white background on the page. 

I added a main coverline to the magazine with the text 'Kings of Leon'. I used a white text in the font impact on a black background. This makes it stand out on the page and attracts the readers attention.

 I added other coverlines to the page down the left third of the pag so there is more information to interest the reader, conforming to the typical conventions of a magazine. These coverlines included recent news about Kings of Leon. I used a consistent colour scheme throughout the text and background block colours of red, black and white.  

This is a  zoomed screen shot of the coverlines on the page. There is a consistent house style used with the colours red, white and black. The  bold white impact text stands out on the red background and the white arial font is easy to read on the black background. I added a black stroke to the white font also.

I changed the font of the main coverline to 'Onyx' as the font on the Rolling Stone magazine is different to the other text on the page. By doing this my magazine cover is conforming to the codes and conventions of the Rolling Stone magazine.  



This is the finished final draft of my magazine front cover.

Here are some photos taken of myself creating my magazine cover and then importing the screen shots onto blogger: