EVALUATION TASK 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

To understand the role of new media technologies in the construction and marketing and distribution of artists in the music industry I complete various research tasks which helped me evaluate their usefulness in my work this year.

I looked at several lectures on YouTube by Michael Wesch is a Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University:

The Machine is (changing) Us:

http://www.youtube.com/user/mwesch#p/u/0/09gR6VPVrpw

An anthropological introduction to YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU


I also watched the first episode of Virtual Revolution played on BB2 in February 2010. The film introduced me to the orgins of the internet and suggests that although initially the internet was based on the ideology of freedom (Netocracy) and can be argued to be a an environment in which audiences can be producers of their own media and experience a creative licence free of institutional conventions, it is now being over taken by media institutions using viral marketing campaigns to sell products and place their own media products.





Below are some bullet points which helped our group collect their ideas for a commentary to answer the question of Evaluation Task 4:

RESEARCH AND PLANNING

Internet/youtube/

Searching the web searching for inspiration, music video ideas, successful advertising campaigns, album art, band websites, myspace etc.

• Explored anti-institutional material (amateur,independent, low-budget)
• User Generated Content and Mash Ups provided much stimuli. Much of the material disgarded institutional and industrial blueprints and produced some interesting juxtapositions of image, sound and text. This gave us much creative inspiration.
• The on-demand aspect of youtube made group brainstorming sessions work well and we churned over many ideas.
• Veiweing so much material was sometimes overwhelming and the Information Cloud was obvious. However we gained a good grasp of the polysemic nature of the bropad genre of the pop promo and were able to choose and reject specific codes and conventions.

Blog

• Example of free software application made possible by HTML code.
  Example of Netocracy but empowering audiences with the publishing and promotional capabilities of dominant media institutions.
  Also creatively very useful to organise images and ideas to make discerning choices (the Blog acts as a creative filter)
• We could use the blog as an online diary in which we would record and date our pre-production, construction tasks as well as evaluation our progress personally as well as part of our group. It was a good organisational tool for planning and storyboarding, collecting props and set design ideas aas well as setting the shooting shedule and running order for filming.

Photoshop

• Was used extensively to create the artwork for the Digipack and magazine poster. Using photoshop hightened our awarness of the generic iconography used to communicate a star image, a particular music genre and signal the expectations that the band performed live and were Organic (Kieth Negus, Producing Pop.) Having to constuct these in such a hands on way really help us think what the connotations were and how they would communicate our brand to the target audience.
• We used it to create the the city skyline from a collection of rooftop images and then imported the image into after effects in Final Cut Pro in Post-production.

CONSTRUCTION

Camera:
Used the digital camera to gather images that would inspire and gather pre-production ideas

• JVC: giving our pop video a finer resolution and a greater depth of field. Gives the product a high quality and professional look.
  Used the camera in a more creative way; explored a variety of shots and movements we had not done last year. Each of our storyboarded shots had a greater purpose to convey the star image of our band.
• we used a PD 170 to film our paperstoryboard and create an animatic which we transfered onto a timeline in Fianl Cut Pro. This gave us greater insight into the pace of editing and effectiveness of shot movement and shot size. It also helped us revue certain aspects of the overal narrative image we wanted to edit together.

POST-PRODUCTION

Final Cut Pro
As we had used Final Cut Pro last year we were able to make our own creative decisions on cuts and timings.

• Used Marker Points whilst editing to help with rhythm and pace
• We had graeter confidence to lip-synch our rushes to the track from the studio playback.
• We used more rushes bins to catagorise not just shot types but also the different scenes in our narrative concept and performance clips.

After Effects

• Use of blue screen and advanced superimpose techniques to create rooftop cityskyline.
• Used masking techniques to sharpen the bleed of focus around the edges of cast members and props.
• layering techniques and photoshop were used to create the depth of the tunnel and place the actress convincingly in it.
• Colouring and light balancing was added to the final cut to balance up various rendered sequences.

Creativity, according to a Department for Education and Enterprise report on skills in the film industry called “A Brighter Future” is made up of four elements: imagination, purpose, originality and value. Imagination is when you think of something inventive, purpose is that your thought fits the purpose, the situation you are facing and looking to meet. Value is that your idea meets the need and is not just an idea that is not relevant. While originality means that it is very different and something that has not been seen or heard of before by you.