Final Video

And here it is folks, the video you've all been waiting for: Sundown productions proudly presents:

C.O.D.E.S  :

Podcast

Adding to the video, I have compiled a short podcast of a radio interview between myself and my other friend Chris Winnard. I set it 2 weeks after the fake TV interview (as on previous post) so as to be able to expand my answers further, adding in (fake) statistics about viewer ratings, revenue of the film and viewer reviews. I also made up for it a podcast cover which I have put into this video:

I have compiled a transcription of the video in PDF file below if any of the podcast speech was unclear:

Podcast Script PDF

The first page consists of all the points which I wished to cover in more depth than I had in the original interview video. On the second and third pages is the transcription of the podcast as a whole.

Below are pictures of the set up I had to record the podcast. I hooked up two AKG condenser Microphones to a single audio interface which all ran into a single Logic file. I used Logic as it was the software most readily available to use for the creation of the podcast. Using condenser mics as they have a much more sensitive diaphragm and are much more sensitive to speech vocals compared with Dynamic microphones which are more suited for bassy sounds and are much less sensitive.

As shown: Me and Chris recording onto a single Mac Logic
file. We shared a script in between ourselves each speaking
into our own microphone placed about 30cm away from us to
avoid any 'pop' noises (noises caused by saying words with
a strong P sounding syllable or S sounding). 

The Garageband file I later uploaded the cut version of the
podcast and added the music. I ensured that neither of the
music files were of length longer than 10seconds to avoid
copyright infringement whilst uploading to youtube later. I
also then added a vocal enhancing effect to the audio file
to ensure the best audio quality of our speech to make it as
clear as possible to the listener.

TV Film review video

Ok, so after many hours work scripting, planning, setting up, shooting, designing and editing, I have now finally compiled the main part of my evaluation. The first part comes in the form of a film interview video between myself and my friend Robert Thomas, he asks the questions, I answer. All questions have been adapted for this video to suit the genre displayed. All shots have been made using green screen and with Motion 5:

Below are each of the individual questions with their original questions:

Question 1: In What ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Question 2: How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question 3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Question 4: Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 5: How did you attract/address you audience?

Question 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Question 8: (extra question) What were your concerns during the construction of your media product?

Below is a transcription of the video(s) incase any areas of the video are unclear or difficult to understand:

C.O.D.E.S interview script PDF

Below are a few photos of the two tasks to show how it was managed, the green screen set up and the software package:

TV Interview:

Video freeze frame of my green screen filming. I am fully
within the ranges of the screen itself, and while it's fairly
creased and in need of an ironing, this would not matter in the
final editing as the software would still be able to identify a
uniform colour across the shot.

Rob's freeze frame of his filming. Again he is well within the
borders of the screen and is suitable lit to be clear against the
background. In both instances, the sunlight from the window
the screen was sufficient to light the screen itself, while an
extra light I placed in front of us both so it would light up our
faces and bodies.

This is Motion 5, the software I used to edit the green screen
in. As you can see, it successfully managed to select the area
of the green screen and replace it with my background.

Again, Rob's background successfully merged with the
background, however Rob's background was a bit more
elaborate than my own. It incorporated many different key
frames and timings, along with movement controls of certain
items and then fade in/fade out controls too.

Evaluation video (Preparation)

Becoming increasingly interested in the different ways in which I could present my evaluation. Be it in a normal word document, straight forward but a bit boring and doesn't show off my potential skills. Be it in a presentation, but then on what? Powerpoint?! I don't think so, deserve something more extravagant. Video presentation then, just showing me nothing else? Well that was my original idea, but then I decided to get a bit more ambitious. I thought, why not go one more step and try something I've never tried before? Green Screening! Always wanted to, never got round to it. Now seems as good as ever.
I looked around for a green screen to actually film on. I researched the various gradients of green that would be ideal. I found that it doesn't really matter as long as its a constant gradient throughout the shot without any variations as this can cause errors to occur. With this in mind, I trawled the internet in search of a suitable screen. Many youtube videos told me that normal felt from your local fabrics store would do the trick. However, this being Norfolk there are no fabric shops which would sell me the necessary amount for a reasonable price or quality. So I looked online and found a "professional" green screen which I could buy to use.

My Green screen. 1.8x2.8m 

Having settled on the screen, I then needed to find some suitable software which could carry out a green screen effect. I knew imovie would do it but when I tried it out it seemed to infantile to achieve it to the level of quality I wanted it. So I continued to look. I also knew Motion 5 would do it, but I knew very little about the software itself, so before buying it, I did some research into the programme. I found this rather handy video which explained a lot to me about the abilities of Motion:

Having been convinced by the video on Motions abilities to complete green screening, I went ahead and bought it.

Now all I needed to do I to decide how to present the video. I looked around at other film interviews and found this:

Looking at others similar to this, I found in all of them the front cover of the film or at the very least the title of the film would be shown up behind the people involved in the interview. I decided that this would be how I could use my green screen. I would use it to flash up perhaps parts of the film behind me but also maybe the cover of my film (pretending that it had been fully completed).

Sound

Reflecting back on the process of how I would do the sound for the platform scene at the very beginning of my video, I looked at many different avenues for which I could sort it out.

The problem with the audio captured by the camera when we were recording was that there was too much white noise captured from the background. It meant the audio for this section of the film would not be suitable and so I needed to find a way around the problem.

I thought about going and recording the sound on a different day on the platform with a better microphone and audio software, however I did not have the necessary equipment compatible to do this.
I then considered using a preset sound file on my video editing software to use instead. Having imported it into the video however, I found the file was way to 'busy' to be suited for the empty platform shown in the video and looked weird to my eye, hearing so many voices and goings on with nothing happening in the video, meaning this file was unsuitable also.
I then decided to completely mute the diegetic sound on the video as nothing was suitable and could not be replaced. Instead, I decided to record my own music piece to place over the top of the video, which I later decided to continue onto the rest of the video. I recorded it using Midi devices and the final product can be heard on the video.






Screen shot of Midi recording, using Garageband on Mac. 
Total tracks: 6

Comments and Feedback

Ok, so now I have completed my video which shall appear on this blog shortly, it is now time to begin to evaluate it:

Having completed my video, I decided to post it up on my Facebook account for my friends and family to see and comment on. After two days, it received over 34 likes and 11 comments.
In all the comments however, there were no posts about how to improve it. Many of the comments were simply praise, with no areas for improvement. This leads me to believe that to the 'untrained' eye that the video is as good as it can be. They all understood what the video was about, the flashback to some point in her past was clear and that she has been taken over by the number Pi by the Evil Professor Hawk.
For the people who knew the people featured, they all thought the casting of both Rory and Fionna was perfect for the roles they were playing.
I received no negative feedback about any of these areas of the video from the public viewing and this leads me to believe that the video is fit for purpose, delivers its message effectively and is well presented to the audience.

Discussing with my fellow Media Students, a few of them noticed a few irregularities concerning the two different train scenes.

 In the first scene, Lucy is shown to be sitting looking out of the window as the image super imposes on her eye, sitting in a seat with a wall behind it.

 

However, in the second scene, she seems to have change seats and is now wearing headphones when she wasn't before.

However, I had anticipated these queries. I explained how this would be part of how the film would move on from this point. I explained, how this was to show how she had been somewhere without the viewers knowledge, how she had changed trains and had put in her headphones. For what reason they then asked. I explained how this would have been the scene where we would then learn what affect the Professor was having upon Lucy. She had just been travelling to a targets home. She had left the train at the point where the flashback had begun, the idea for this was to express how the Professor was still controlling her even then. She had broken into the home and murdered the target (I could not be more exact in how, where or when as I only designed it to be an outline of what would have happened from this point). She had then boarded the train just as the flashback ended, put the headphones in as a method of hypnosis applied to her by the professor. So when the final shot comes on, this then explained the irregularity. 

Film Music

Now I have completed my editing of the actual video, it is now time for me to begin work on the film music which I plan to go with it.
The idea for this will be to add suspense to the video and create a further sense of panic within the viewer. I hope to achieve this in a number of ways:

• To create a tempo beat which would match the heart rate of my main character, this would then emphasise the feeling of panic within the character. I've researched the human heart beat to be 65bpm, so have set the tempo of my film music to be 65bpm also to match. 
• The increase in heart rate would then be mirrored in the tempo of the piece, so as our main character gets more agitated, the faster the music gets.
• Strings are usually used to create an extra feeling of dread/tension in the viewer, thus I hope to use the string sounds to create a typically dangerous sound for the piece.
• As this video is called 'C.O.D.E.S' it seems fitting that there should be a short of rhythm running underneath the music, like morse code. This would add to the idea of the control being hidden within the psyche, that the code is controlling you on a far deeper level. 

I believe these effects added to the music will complete the overall feel of the video and ultimately help to increase its effect on the viewer and the improve the idea of the message trying to be put across.