We used many media technologies in the research stage should as SurveyMonkey which is an online survey provider which allows its users to gain better knowledge of their subject matter.This site has given me the opportunity to create a target audience for me to aim my project at. I have asked questions such as 'What is your favourite music genre?' to see what genre of music the major of the responders like. I am also able to view my results in a number of formats to best suit me for example a bar graph or pie chart. Even though this is a good and free way of getting feedback it is not necessarily the best as the survey is only to be advertised on my blogger account which I have a very small readership. I did however get some results from my Blogger account which I put into effect immediately when making the group decision on what our project would contain and how we should fit to the needs of the target audience.
The results from
my survey showed that 40% were male and 60% were female and 80% of those were
aged between 18 to 24. With this information we knew that we would target our
video towards an aged range like our own. This made it slightly easier for
us as we could relate to the audience more that if it was a much older
audience. Another question on my survey was “What is your favourite music
genre?”; 40% answered “Pop” and another 40% answered “Indie”. With this we know
what type so artists and groups we need to analysis when picking a song, style
and mood. After some research and group discussions we decided to choose the
song “Shine” by Years & Years due to its blending of genres (electro, indie
and pop). It also attracts to both a male and female audience, therefore
reaching the broadest audience possible.
YouTube is a
video sharing website available to anyone around the world. This is how we uploaded our final project and
also what I used to conduct research for essays and search for similar artists
and groups within the genres. Actually viewing the videos also helped us image
what our final project should look and sound like. When researching for the
music genre we want to use we found this very useful as it contained all the
songs that had been released by artists and bands in one place. The category of
'Trending' was quite useful as we could click and then select the music
category to see want was the most popular song as well as artist at the time. YouTube
is a very successful and amazing for us to better our knowledge on the genre
and what we need to look for to make our project as professional and pleasing
to the audience as possible. YouTube videos also contain a like or dislike
button on each video so in every video we wanted we could see what was a good
example and what we need to stay away from and not make the same mistakes. The
only problem with YouTube is that when researching in school our computers
within the school would not allow the videos to play so prevented us from doing
work at certain times during the school day. However, we over came by
completing tasks at home and ended up with what I believe is a very successful
final project.
I have also used
Blogger which I have using now. This is a program which I have used the whole
way through the life of the project to log and represent its growth and
development. My posts vary from content size but each is as important as the
last in this documentation. The posts do not just track my progress but also
inform my readership of project at the time. Blogger also allows not just text
but also more advanced features just as images, importing videos, presentations
and main more. It is a good form of formal and informal social media as the
readers can leave comments on each post with any queries. With Blogger account
I also have to opportunity to attach labels to certain posts so the reader can
search for a certain topic easier to the right hand side of the screen instead
of scrolling through lots of old posts. The labels I have included in my
account are "Research", "Planning", "Ancillary
Task" and "Evaluation". Although Blogger is very good and simple
to use it does have some negative aspects such as it can be difficult to
arrange images as they jump and glitch around the editable area. And the site
itself has proven to be problematic as he has frozen on my whilst composing a
post. But with all that it does the job well.
When given a
camera to record our video by school we made the decision to use Paddy’s camera
(Canon EOS 1200) which was better quality and Paddy had previously used it
before so him being familiar with it was a plus. As well as having a higher
resolution it also had a larger lens zoom. When testing different shots, we
found that the camera contain severely features to give the image or video an
effect. We used one which reduced the shutter speed when film shots that
contained driving scenes, this gave an effect that we could alter to show the
pace and motion of the car in a clear and crisp motion. It also increased the
light exposed of the shot resulting in little to no glare. One issue with the
camera was that when zooming in the image was sometimes jumpy and took a little
while to focus. However, we used this to our advantage as it created a good
effect a gave the mood a faster pace.
In additionally
we used a tripod which was quite simple but it did the job. We used the tripod
in order to achieve a steady, clear shot instead of shaking hands. The tripod
also has a handle to move and operate the camera whilst filming rather than
physically moving the camera and potentially making the image shaky. Furthermore,
we used a dolly momentarily with the tripod as a means of increasing the height
of a shot angle and maneuverability of the tripod as it was for a tracking shot
of myself walking down a corridor. The dolly provided a smooth tracking shot
which was very effective when filming.
In the previous year
we had used all this equipment before but this year we got our hands a new
piece of technology, the lighting rig. This allowed us to film in the dark and
still capture the crucial shots. With this we were able to make the video look
and feel more professional as we would just have to wait until daylight but we
used it when referring to the symbolism within our video with the use of
different light sources. A problem with the rigs nevertheless is that they are
very light structure so they need to be constantly manned so they did not fall
and brake.
We edited our
shots on Final Cut Pro X, which is a very popular film editing software amongst
independent filmmakers and professional YouTubers themselves. Even though this
department was Paddy’s job he showed the group what he had do to the shots in
order to piece them into a video that ended as a very good and professional
looking produce. Paddy use the features of the software such as the sound
mixing to edit the volume of the song at certain times when we wanted the
viewer to hear another sound. As well as the use of speeding or slowing down
the speed of the film to achieve what we wanted to achieve.
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