How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? I have made a video in response to this question here:
For Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements 13 I decided to write this post out so I could go into more detail with them as I spent more time working with these than any of the other technologies.
For the editing of the video, I used Adobe Premiere Elements 13. This was the first time I had used any video editing software so everything was completely new to me. Uploading files was very easy, whether they were videos, photos, or sound files. Trimming clips was very straightforward, however occasionally when I wanted to trim a clip it would displace every other clip in front of it, meaning it would make the lip syncing out of time. This was extremely frustrating and delayed my work a lot. When I cut the clips of footage it would also cut the song, meaning I would have about 10 different clips of audio and I had to spend time going through each one individually to change the level of sound.
Saving the video was also frustrating since it took about twenty minutes and saved it with a really low-quality resolution. Being able to see the audio of each video clip was useful as it helped me sync that particular clip with the song. I used regular continuity cuts for the transitions for my video as these were the best to put in since it was appropriate for the music video and didn't lag the video when editing.
What have you learned from your audience feedback?
Audience feedback has been useful to me in knowing what my media product is like to others. In my reaction video (below), I had other media students watch my music video and I also had them look at the digipak to get constructive criticism on it.
I have made a video in response to this question here:
Please watch the video and then carry on reading the post.
Positive feedback:
One thing that everybody liked about the video was the use of different shots and locations. This is good that this has paid off since it was quite hard filming so much in the church as we had a limited amount of time. Filming outside on a fence was difficult as well since it was just almost freezing and made it hard to play the guitar properly. One comment was about how the location of the church was good considering what the lyrics were. This is good as I wanted to make my target audience notice the lyrics and the settings in the video as it would appeal to them.
Another thing people generally liked was the lip syncing, guitar playing and cuts of the shots. Editing the footage to it synced with the song did take quite a while at first but it was very rewarding once I had it in time. Cutting the clips and then putting them together also took a while since I had to start from scratch again when syncing them with the music.
People also said the mise-en-scene was good. The ace of spades burning looked "very cool”, and the fact that it related to the lyrics (“burning shit”) was extremely well done, especially since it cut to the shot as the lyrics were being sung.
For the digipak people liked the colour schemes and how it reflected with the tone of the song. The imagery also worked well together. How the font choice is the same throughout.
Negative Feedback:
One of the things people said was that it was confusing at times, but people gave different reasons. Some comments were about how the card was confusing in the video. This is very understandable since it was only in featured in a few shots. The purpose of burning the card (other than linking it to the lyrics) was to show the slow transformation and destruction of it throughout the video. So, if I was going back over the video I would include more frequent shots of the card being burnt from the beginning until the end, so it would make more sense in the context of the music video.
Another point was there were too many shots of lyrics being cut out, so I would decrease the number of those shots and replaced with footage of more performance and the lyrics being written out as they seem more suitable.
One person pointed out that they didn’t understand the silhouette being hit. In hindsight, I should have had the silhouette doing different things rather than just playing guitar and being hit once, like maybe acting out some of the lyrics or just not included the hitting part at all. However, it works quite well as it’s synced to the beat of the guitar and keeps the audience engaged.
The record label logo on the digipak looked out of place as its colours conflicted with the rest of the covers. The lyrics are too small to read
Suggested changes to the music video:
People suggested including more shots of thesilhouette as it looked very good and possibly to make the “hitting” shot make more sense. If I was reshooting it I would have the silhouette doing different things.
Other comments said to have more varied shots, so I included more sections of the church shots and cut between that and the shots in the field so it went between the two more frequently. Here are some examples of the questions I had people answer:
