Saturday, 31 March 2018

Question 4


Q4 - WHAT TECHNOLOGIES DID I USE IN MY PROJECT?


Technology brings about empowerment for young people such as myself and it gives us creative agency over our own projects. The wider availability of the technologies meant that I was able to experiment around with my video in all stages; post-production, production and pre-production.

For example, websites such as DaFont.com allowed me to get a certain visual effect to my video by having thousands of unique fonts to choose from rather than be limited to the defaults of a standard PC. Furthermore, I used the editing software Premier Pro to edit my video which meant I was able to add effects to my footage that I wouldn't’t have been able to achieve with a camera. For example, I was able to change the colour and saturation of some of my shots using the RBG Curve tool which meant I was able to make it fit in with the rest of the video better. Another thing it allowed me to do was use slow-motion on my footage which was vital as I viewed it as a common convention for a music video in my genre.

Adobe Photoshop was another software that brought about empowerment, especially when creating my digipack. It gave me the ability to produce a front cover that looks aesthetically pleasing and added authenticity to my project by creating my own band logo. Furthermore using the clone and pattern stamp tool I was able to remove certain things from my images to make them look better, an example of this is on my front cover, in front of the building, on the grass there were a few rabbit holes and a manhole cover and it effect the look of the image so I used the clone stamp tool to copy and area of grass that looked better and was able to cover up the holes so it looked like one smooth patch of grass.


I used a GoPro Hero 6 to film my music video as it was easily accessible to me, along with it I used the Karma Grip which acts a stabilizer to make all the shots nice and smooth, combined with the crisp high resolution this allowed for a very high quality product by the end. This is an example of how the availability of technologies is democratising the production of media. Furthermore, for my digipack I was able to use a DSLR camera for extremely high quality shots.  

Wednesday, 13 December 2017

How can we describe an analyse the narrative within our music video?

My music video utilises a linear narrative structure which can be examined via Todorov's theory of narrative. Todorovs theory of narrative has the foundations of that every media text has 3 acts and along them there is equilibrium, disruption of the equilibrium and finally the discovery of a new equilibrium.
My video starts with the main character receiving a text signalling the parting of a relationship, this is used as a proairetic device because it drives the story line onward which is then conveyed by the character biking in time with beat of the song. In addition to this, the text at the start is used as a framing device for the video because it sets up a story.
For the duration of the video we are in a disequilibrium because it is about the guy talking to his ex-girlfriend about why they have split. But fitting with the theory of narrative, the disequilibrium is overcome at the end.
Roland Barthes theory of open and closed narratives also applies to my music video due this overcoming of an equilibrium provides closure to the audience.