Over the past months I have used a variety of tools and technologies to create my final products in the best quality. I have also used many technologies to broadcast and share my ideas, research and production.
Programs:
Final Cut Pro
Production:
Final Cut Pro was one of the most important tools that I have used. It let me edit, manipulate and put in place videos taken at the sea side to create the music video that everyone enjoyed so much.
I have used this program last year which made it this much easier and quicker to use this year.
I could easily cut and put separate videos in the right place. I was able to mark the video with the beat using "markers" (using the M key) which really helped with precise editing of the music video. I also used the markers to put all the base track and videos in synch with the original song.
Research:
In our final version of the video we didn't include any special effects done on this software but here is a video of me trying out some potential effects:
I have used this program last year which made it this much easier and quicker to use this year.
I could easily cut and put separate videos in the right place. I was able to mark the video with the beat using "markers" (using the M key) which really helped with precise editing of the music video. I also used the markers to put all the base track and videos in synch with the original song.
Research:
In our final version of the video we didn't include any special effects done on this software but here is a video of me trying out some potential effects:
I was trying out a few effects(such us slow-motion and overlapping) that we could have used in our video to see whether they would fit into our genre and video. At the end we decided to only use lyrics on the screen. Using too many effects makes the video look unprofessional it also doesn't fit our genre.
Adobe After Effects CS5
Production:
I have used Adobe After Effects to create the lyrics on the screen. I used this software last year to create Candi Studios logo/animation so I knew some basics.
I prefer Adobe After Effects more than LifeType because it has much more possibilities and it is easier to time the lyrics more precisely.
Adobe Photoshop CS5
Production:
I have used this software for a few years now which allowed me to make my ancillary products much easier and faster. I have started by choosing my colour for the background and I used an Artistic Filter which created a nice paper pattern. Here I show how I apply a sponge effect on a different(to the colour I used in my design) coloured paper:
However real life images and textures can never look better when made digitally therefore I scanned pieces of watercolour paper painted brown and used them instead in one of the final stages of my production. At the end I have applied this effect only to my photos to blend in better with the background.
A "grid" is a great thing to align, put desired images in the right place and in a good distance from each other. It is a simple tool that can make a big difference to the final product. It really helped with aligning the text, logos and images inside the digipak and on the advertisement.To create the vintage, newspaper or as some called it the "3D" effect I simply duplicated the images and layered them on top of each other. I slightly shifted each of them to one direction and disabled one of their RGB colours to reveal either red or blue colour. Changing their opacity made them less strong and more like shadows; something additional and not the main focus.
iShowU and QuickTime Player
I have used iShowU and QuickTime Player to record the screen and show whatever program I was using and how I used them. It allowed me to easily express and explain how and why I did some effects.
MPEG Streamclip and QuickTime Player
I used this software to export my videos in a lower quality that allowed me to post them on my blog. I used them to export my screen recordings as well as the interviews and the final edit of our video. The screen shot on the left shows MPEG Streamclip. To export them I had to drag my video clip to the center and select a preset that was compatible with blogger to get the best quality video which I was able to post.Internet
Hardware
State of the art video cameras, memory cards, cameras, hard drives.
Blogger, Facebook, YouTube, Picasion, PhotoBucket
Hardware
State of the art video cameras, memory cards, cameras, hard drives.
All of this allowed us to film, plan and take potential pictures for the digipak. We have used the cameras to make an animatic which really helped with filming because we knew what and where to film and when to put it in the video. It shortened our editing and filming time which is one of the reason why the music video was a success. Here is the animatic that we made few months ago:
The video cameras allowed us to film the music video in a really hight quality and memory cards allowed us to instantaneously move that footage to our hard drives and edit.
