Assignment 1: Investigation, Presentation

On Friday 23rd, the rest of the media group, the performing arts group, and I, all undertook a presentation. The rest of the media group and I, had to do a presentation on two music videos and compare them both. The investigation had to include:-

• the techniques and technology used by two practitioners per medium
• how previous work differs from current work
• why previous work differs from current work
• how technologies and techniques vary from one example to another
• how practices, methods and techniques have changed over time
• which techniques and methods have you found interesting and inspiring

I feel that my presentation included what I needed to get a good mark as I wrote about each bullet-point that had to be investigated, in a good amount of detail.

I performed by presentation in the form of a website. I thought this would be a good way of presenting because it's very creative, different and something that will keep the attention of the audience I am presenting it to. The videos that I compared were Waterloo by ABBA, and Always Where I Need To Be by The Kooks.

Photography

For the first time, the group and I used pinhole cameras. We learnt how to use them properly and how to get the best out of the photos, for example, the light helps bring out the picture more.
We made different pictures and experimented taking photos of diffent things.

Graphic Design

Using Photo Booth on the Mac computers, we uploaded pictures of our faces on to Photo Shop and manipulated them using various tools and techniques. We applied tools that ranged from changing the look of the texture of our faces, to tools that blanked out the background. Once we got more confident with how to go about this, we started using the interactive pens and pads too.

Film

Most recently in my film lectures, the rest of the class and I have started experimenting with lots of different camera techniques that we have researched during our capture projects. This has also tied in with our music technology lectures as we have tried reenacting different camera techniques that we saw in various music videos that we thought would give us ideas for our own music video project. This has been very useful because this has helped the rest of the class and I progress well in both subjects.

Music Technology

In my music technology lessons, my group and I have begun trying to promote our chosen artist. So far we have managed to write down how to promote the artist as a 'brand'. For example, his persona and character. We think he will propel more towards success as a very charasmatic performer. The reason we are trying to brand him, is so we know how to go about making his music video fit his character.

Photography

In the first few Photography lectures, the rest of the group and I built our knowledge about Dark Room work by getting to know our way around the equipment and how with this equipment, to make photograms and other photographic images.

Another thing we did in the first few lectures in photography was watching a brief slide-show about different photographers and learning about the work they are remembered for.

Graphic Design

In the first few Graphic Design lectures, the rest of the group and I started using Photoshop. Photoshop is a graphics editing programme where you can manipulate images and do almost anything you want to it.

Our task in Photoshop was to make a poster advertising a surf competition in the Mounts bay area. We had two images - one of St.Michaels Mount and one of a surfer. We had to import them into Photoshop and then change the two pictures by using various techniques.

After getting used to the editing software, we began to use more advanced tools and techniques to make the picture look better.

When we finished editing, we had to answer a few questions about how we made the picture look as it did. The purpose of this was to help us remind ourselves about how to get around the things we may get stuck in, in the future.

Film

In my first few Film lectures the rest of the group and I were learning more about the theory of filming rather than actually filming. We started off by learning the basics of Film making, such as different angles, shots and lenses. We also started learning the reasons for using specific shots. For example, you would use a worms-eye view on a character to make them seem more powerful.

We then started watching extracts from different films and analysed them. We were answering questions such as 'what was the purpose of using those shots in that scene?'

After gaining knowledge about the theory side of Film, we then had to start filming. We first acted out story-boards, and then we made our own story-boards and acted them out. While filming, we had to think about the things we learnt in theory, such as what sort of shots to use.

Music Technology

In the first few lessons of Music Technology I learnt how to set-up equipment and connect it to a computer so I could start recording musicians using the programme Logic Pro.

After getting more confident with setting-up equipment, the rest of the group and I started widening our knowledge of Logic Pro. We used more areas of the programme; more specifically - loops. A loop is a small section of sound that repeats continuously. We kept adding loops to the same track to try and make a song out of them. One time, we recorded our own pieces of music in the recording studio and imported them into Logic Pro so that we could make a song out of them instead of the Logic Pro loops. This was a good activity as we had to use almost all skills we had learnt at one time - setting-up equipment, connecting the equipment to a computer, and using Logic Pro.

Most recently in my Music Technology lectures, we have also began to film. We have started filming bands while they are playing as practice to get familiar with the filming equipment. This was also a good activity because when it comes to producing music videos and staging live shows we would have had some experience in the area of filming.