Question 4

2013 Opening Sequence

Hardware: 

For the opening sequence we decided to use a Nikon v2 to film our opening sequence which in hindsight wasn't the best idea as due to it being a mirror-less camera, it had very little dimension therefore it was almost impossible to achieve any sort of shot that was considered steady. Due to the size of the body of the camera every movement taken whilst filming was over exaggerated. This was also as evident as the kit lens that was used also did no have OIS. However what was useful about the camera was its dynamic range and how it handled different situations of light very well, as expected from a mirror-less camera.

(I will discuss what was used to edit the video as a comparison between the two operating systems that were used)

Software:

There were two types of editing software that were used, Camtasia Studios and Final Cut Pro X the reason they were used was due to the fact that Camtasia was easy to use for the first edit. Final Cut Pro X was used for the final edit was because it had more tools that were at our disposal, for example the colour grading. What was also useful about Final Cut was it titles that were available to us, Camtasia however lacked in professionalism when it comes to the titles.

Weebly was used to create the platform at which our media text and research was distributed, this is because it was easy to use and looked quite professional, also this was very useful in terms of uploading our media text as it had the ability to embed a video into the website. However the downfalls of using Weebly was that it would crash regularly (which was only a problem last year as our peers mainly used Weebly this current academic year)

Scribd was used as a failsafe to when our documents were not being uploaded to our websites by using Weebly's built in method of uploading documents, which was very useful as it happened quite frequently.

Prezi is a online presentation software that was used for the bulk of my tasks that required some sort of presentation or text. Which in hindsight not the greatest idea as i believe it became very repetitive as the presentation had the same style of animation. Prezi was very useful as it had many tools available to the user such as the ability to upload YouTube videos, pictures and having background music (which i didn't really use) Overall Prezi is very useful with its simplistic ease of use.

YouTube was the platform that our media text was distributed on, this is because it is the most popular video sharing site in the world and it also useful that there is now on emerging market on YouTube for small films.

2014 Music Video

Hardware:

We decided to reinvest into a camera which was the Canon 600D this was a very wise choice as it was a lot easier to film and get more accurate shots as they were less shaky and recorded in full 1080p at 24fps, whereas the Nikon v2 filmed at 25fps, which made it very difficult to edit. This camera is also a full sized DSLR making it a lot easier to film and acquire better shots.

We used a Rode Videomic to record the sound for the music video. We didn't use the built in camera recorder as it would've been very difficult to sync the song with the performance part of the video, if we decided to use the built in audio recorder, it would've been near impossible due to all the white noise and lack of dynamic range.

Mac Vs Windows

This was an issue when deciding what to edit the videos on. This is due to the lack of software we had available to us which is useable on the programs effectively because of the lack of performance in the computers. For example, the music video was editing initially on my Mac Pro early 2008 edition. However, this seemed to be a vital mistake as it regularly crashed, so we decided to use Jack's laptop which is specked higher than my computer and hardly crashed due to it's performance. I am fully aware that conventionally a Mac would generally be used to edit, although it was evident that it was wishful thinking for me to believe it could've handled the heavy performance load.

Software:

This year I decided to use Slides, Prezi and Emaze for the presentation software as they all had different styles, themes and were all very user friendly and not very complicated to use. They were all very useful as they were easily embedded on to our websites, all you'd have to do is copy the embedded code that the software provides and then all you would have to do is copy it into the tools that the website builder offers.

I decided to use the Adobe Creative Suite as it is useful that the programs are compatible with each other, for example photoshop documents can go straight into Premier pro projects (which is what I used when editing the music video and creating the digipak and the magazine advert. 

I created my website with Wix, which is a free website builder that was a lot more accessible and allows creative ease, this is the main reason i decided to use this software rather than using weebly, although it is personal preference as it is more user friendly and also can be personalised more.